


Recurrence

by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Vikings, Complicated Relationships, Dubious Consent, F/F, Samurai, Uber
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-03-27 15:06:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 63
Words: 184,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19015357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered
Summary: This work took me nine months to complete from the time I began typing the first word until now, as I'm posting it.  It doesn't seek to correct canon so much as explain it, the biggest variation being that Alex is written as Buddhist, something I often do.  Of all the weapons Alex could have chosen, why the sword? Although they never managed to make something happen, what was it exactly that pulled Alex and Astra to each other? This story seeks to tell the stories of these two star-crossed lovers, and what happened before now.In a previous life, Astra was Ase Ironhand, a Viking earl, one of the rare women to rise to such a level of power among the Danes. Alex was Ardith, a Saxon girl and object of the invading Dane's affections.In another previous life, Astra was Aguri Inouye, a feared general under her husband, the daimyo Yorihime Noboru. Alex was Myoge, the Zen buddhist nun who captures her. This timeline, like the one before it, contains a number of OCs as well as incarnations of canon characters.Canon is told backwards. When you reach the end, you'll understand why. Here are the first three chapters, introducing each timeline. I'll update weekly. I killed myself on this thing. I hope you enjoy it.





	1. With Our Thoughts, We Make The World

 

Alex felt the vibrations of the chopper in the thick soles of her boots.“We are… what we think,” she muttered to herself, looking down at the rooftop of the satellite building, securing the straps around her waist and over her shoulders.“All that we are… arises with our thoughts.” 

Vasquez, crouched behind her, was clipping the drop line to the back of her belt.“What, ma’am?” she called over the grind and roar of the chopper blades.

“Nothing!” Alex hollered back.She looked down again, preparing to jump.Franks was muttering a rosary behind her.Pinpricks of light spread out before her, the city rolling away into the distance like an opened jewel box, unaware of how close it was to being plundered.Alex knew she would keep it safe, because she had to.The fall air blew cool on her face and whipped her short, dark hair in strings around her face as she squinted against the wind.“With our thoughts,” she continued murmuring, “we make the world.” 

She frequently whispered those words of the Buddha’s to herself before a fight.It steadied her in the moment, made her aware and alive in it.She stood in the chopper, preparing to jump, feeling the weight of two sidearms holstered tight, one against each thigh, the heavy sword laying between her shoulder blades, the hard end of its sheath digging a little into the small of her back.

“Kick their asses, ma’am,” Vasquez shouted, her face serious.

Alex nodded, smiled faintly, took hold of the line, and then jumped.

She began her descent.She was aware of J’onn, battling another Kryptonian on an adjacent rooftop.She saw them both arc through the air and shatter the side of a building.She saw her sister, golden hair flying wildly, down on the ground next to the building.She was pounding someone relentlessly.Alex guessed from the rage in her blows that it was probably Non.She didn’t blame Kara for going after her uncle like that.It was the least he deserved, really.

As she descended quickly toward the rooftop, her eyes found Astra.Astra, her enemy, her strange friend, her inexplicable fascination.Astra was where Alex expected to find her, tampering with the box at the box at the base of the satellite, attempting to rewire it with tools she was pulling from a satchel over her shoulder.So they’d gotten here in time.

Alex felt the air rushing past, pushing against her, against the speed of her descent.She saw Astra look up.Their eyes locked, even at this distance.And then she saw Astra’s eyes begin to glow, and she cursed under her breath.A bolt of light shot from them and snapped the drop line.Alex swore again as her descent became quicker, and she prepared herself for as safe a landing as possible under the circumstances. _I’d go for a superhero landing,_ she thought with grim humor, _but those are tough on the knees._

 _I am not about to die,_ she told herself, willing it to be true.She made a graceless but uninjured landing on the rooftop, some fifty feet from Astra where she stood.She struck the concrete and then drew her guns in a single swift movement, firing as she ran toward her.The bullets did nothing, as she expected.She only cared about drawing Astra away from her task.It worked.

In a heartbeat, a breath, Astra was there in front of her, disarming her.Her speed was still impressive, frightening.But Alex tapped the well of serenity and remained steady in the face of death.

Alex Danvers bore a tattoo on her left bicep, a sleeve, of Hokusai’s “Great Wave”, wrapping around its lean, muscled girth.What casual observers often missed when looking at that painting were the boats, the fishermen sailing out, towards the wave, in defiance of something much greater than themselves.Alex Danvers may have feared things that were bigger, stronger, faster, more terrible than she, but she was never stopped by them.

Even as Astra shoved them both over to the edge of the rooftop, even as the hard stone ledge dug into her back, Alex knew she had Astra exactly where she needed her.This was never meant to be a fight, not between them. She felt sure of it now.Everything that had passed between them in these last few weeks had made her believe in that.J’onn had been dubious.But Alex knew.

Astra held her in a crushing grip, pinned against the stone ledge.Alex looked up into her face.She felt the same familiarity she’d felt the first time they’d laid eyes on each other.Alex had her doubts about the notion of the soul but all the same, she’d been unable to explain what she’d seen in Astra.She couldn’t explain it now.This was the essence of bending like a reed.She was laying her trust in the inexplicable, and she knew it was written on her face.“I didn’t come here to fight you, Astra.”

Astra’s chin trembled.Her grasp on Alex loosened only a little.“I helped you save my niece out of a sense of duty,” she rasped.“Which does not extend to you.”

Alex shook her head slowly.“I can’t explain it but I’ve seen something more than just duty in you, many times now.And I know you’ve seen it in me, too, or you would have killed me any of those times when you could have. You know as well as I do that this whole thing doesn’t feel right.”

“You know nothing of me!” Astra spat, and tightened her grip again.Her voice was ragged.

Time after time, from the very beginning, Alex had felt a tentative reaching out from her, and now she was recoiling. Alex understood this. She herself had many times been in the unenviable position of having committed to something she no longer wanted to do, and she recognized this last, desperate burst of stubborn heart, of wanting to keep her word.

Alex didn’t struggle.She persisted.She breathed deeply, and calmly said, “Astra, I know you love Kara.And I know… I know we understand each other.”She breathed again, fighting to keep herself loose in Astra’s hands.She could see that it unnerved Astra.“I understand duty, too, Astra, and I will do mine, if I have to.You want to save the world? Yeah, let’s save the world together, but it can’t be like this.”

Astra’s grip loosened again.Alex saw hesitation, conflict, even fear in her face.“You … you cannot know…”

“I know more than you think,” Alex said softly.“I know you carry a fire in you like the burning heart of a star.”

Astra looked stricken.“How…?” she began, breathless.

“Give it up,” Alex persisted.She was no longer aware of the other battles raging in the vicinity.She was only aware of Astra, her nearness, the sadness and passion of her, and for a moment, something else.Something she saw, not with her eyes, but with her mind; she felt, for a moment, as though she were enveloped by wings of flame.“Join us,” she pleaded in a hoarse whisper.

The heat was as real as if Astra herself were on fire.For just a moment, one that felt eternal, Alex was caught, staring into the eyes of something that was Astra, but also more than Astra.Through the flames in her mind, Alex saw a woman, dressed in the saffron robes of a Buddhist nun, holding another woman who was dressed in a black kimono not unlike that of a samurai, amid the burning chaos of a battlefield.The nun leaned heavily on a wooden staff and was holding the wounded samurai woman close to her.She smelled the stink of gunpowder, of horse flesh, of blood, and heard the clamor of steel against steel.

Astra was staring back at her though these visions, as though she were seeing a ghost.“I told you,” she whispered, “we cannot take away what the gods give us.”

Alex’s heart stopped beating.And then all of it was gone.Perhaps, just perhaps, Alex thought, she would never need to use the kryptonite sword that now dug into her spine.“You can build your future, Astra,” she pleaded.“This very moment, you can build it. You are the sum, right now, of every choice you have ever made, but you can make other choices, new choices. You can choose to become more than a criminal, more than a conqueror, if you want to.”

“Agent Danvers,” Astra whispered finally.“I cannot–”

But whatever her thought was, it was torn out of her mouth as J’onn descended from behind Astra and tore her away, flinging her across the rooftop.

Alex cursed again.She was doing a lot of that tonight. 

Too much of her body had been tilted back over the ledge, and it had largely been Astra’s weight keeping her in place.She felt herself tip back, saw the vault of stars above her turning in slow motion above her head as she felt herself tipping over the ledge.In the kind of awareness she had only ever had in her most perfect moments of zen, she felt her gloved fingers find the lip of the stone ledge.In slow motion, she stretched her legs out, trying to redistribute her weight and stop the fall.She was aware of the sounds of Kara, still down below, raging at her uncle.She was aware of the sounds of Astra and J’onn, arcing across the sky like angry gods as each tried to find advantage over the other.Alex’s fingers were curled around the ledge as she slowly scooted herself forward till her heels found concrete and she was able to lean forward and pull herself onto her feet, breathing hard from her effort.A rain began falling, disconcertingly gentle.Alex squinted and saw one of her greatest fears unfolding.

J’onn had been brought to his knees.Astra stood above him, weilding a blade (where had she got it?), and it was clear she was preparing a finishing blow. “Fear not, Martian,” she was saying.“You will die a soldier’s death.”

_I understand duty, too, and I will do mine if I have to._

This was not what she wanted.J’onn, her commanding officer and surrogate father, was about to die.Her adversary had her back turned.She was trained for this.She had suffered and stretched and given every scrap of herself to be ready for this moment.She broke into a run, reaching over her shoulder to unsheath the sword as she did.Her focus narrowed to that vulnerable spot in the middle of Astra’s back.That was her target.That was where she needed to strike to keep the unthinkable from happening.She raised her arms, and plunged the glowing green blade into Astra’s back.

Alex had killed before.It was, after all, a part of her job.She was a soldier.She fought with honor and did her duty.It should be no different now.But it still startled her from her single-minded focus, the ease with which the kryptonite sword pierced the otherwise invulnerable flesh, and then startled her again how it required the extra push to force it through to the other side, and through the sternum.The wet sounds of the blade passing through viscera, the dull crunch of it breaking through bone.It was not so unlike killing a human, after all.

Alex found a peculiar intimacy in taking someone’s life in the line of duty.She had done so a number of times now, in both close combat and firefights.It was a grim and solemn act, and in her mind, she took a moment to acknowledge the passing of a life from being to nothingness, no matter whose it was. And she had the thought she always did, only now it held more weight: _Mine is the hand that has ushered you on._

Astra gasped.

Alex stood frozen for a moment, realizing with horror that she would never know what had really happened, or why she and Astra had connected the way they had.She would never get answers.She would never know who those women were. She would never get a chance to help Astra heal.She pulled the blade free and held it as if half expecting she would need to strike again.And then watched Astra fall to the ground, crumpling.

She had taken Kara’s aunt from her.

Duty was often unpleasant, she reminded herself.At this moment, it was especially so.She knelt down beside Astra as J’onn rose up and collected himself.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, as Astra lay shivering on the concrete.“This was not how I wanted this to go. I wanted you to turn to me. I wanted you on our side –” She swallowed hard. “ _–my_ side.”

Astra’s eyes were staring elsewhere now.“Some sacrifices are necessary. We will try again,” she said faintly.She was pale, and blood was seeping out underneath her, soaking the dark fabric of her pressure suit.

“What do you mean?”Alex took one of her cold, shaking hands. 

“Perhaps we will be luckier next time,” Astra mumbled, her lips barely able to form the words.

Alex frowned.“Astra, what are we to each other?”

“Nothing,” Astra whispered, and looked as though she would have laughed if she could.But Astra’s light was almost gone, and she was saving it to look at the stars. 

Alex winced.Kara had taught Alex to find the light of her home world long ago, when they were both children.“Over my left shoulder… you can see Rao,” Alex said quietly.

Alex heard the disturbance of gravel behind her, the rush of air that was Kara, landing on the roof.She heard her gasp and run to Astra’s side.Alex stood back and watched them, knowing it was not her moment anymore.Kara sat on the concrete beside Astra, tears pouring down her face, pleading with her not to die.Alex didn’t tell her it was useless.The wound was grievous, the damage, obvious.Kara didn’t need to be told.She hunched down enough to place a hand on Kara’s shoulder as it shook with sobs.

“It is not such a… bad way to go…” she heard Astra sigh.“…a soldier’s death…”

Alex felt a twinge in her chest, watching Astra expire, watching Kara weep for her.There would be time later for her to reckon with the guilt, the grief, the inexplicable sense of loss.She glanced over at the satchel that had slipped from Astra’s shoulder during their conflict and lay open on the rooftop.A copy of “The Art of War” had tumbled out of it.The cherry blossoms tattooed on Alex’s shoulder blade throbbed for a moment, discomfiting in their raw newness.She stood in the soft rain and gave herself a moment to feel all of it, and then locked eyes with J’onn.The fight was not done.

 


	2. To Doverstraat

"Unharmed Go Forth, Unharmed Return, Unharmed Back Home"  
-Frigga's blessing to Odin

  
  


Ase pulled her sword from the chest of a dying Frankish youth.She looked down at him and smiled, not malevolently, but rather with some admiration.He was too young for a fight like this.He should have fled with with the women.But he stayed, and bled like a warrior.

He was untrained and armed with a forearm-length shortsword, but he had come at her with passion and swung again and again with everything in his lanky frame.She coughed once through the heat and smoke.“You fought well, Frank,” she told him in Danish, “and though you are only a farmer, you will receive a warrior’s death.”She knew he likely did not understand her words.But her meaning, she supposed, was plain enough. 

She plunged her blade into his neck and the thick, red blood spurted from it and painted itself across her leather bracers and the back of her sword hand.He fell, dying quickly as the life pumped red from the wound in his throat.

And just as well, too, for the thatched roof of this Frankish farmhouse was on fire and the flame was working its way down the timber frame. 

She liked the Frankish and their odd-shaped houses, but it never felt like a proper raid unless you burned the place down when you were done.She had enough of the battle rage in her some days that she felt she could burn the entire world down a hundred times over.Today, she would settle for a few farmhouses, a tannery.Replaceable things.However, she preferred not to be inside them while they were burning.No glory in a death like that.

Harald had been told this, but he was a poor listener.In reality, she assumed his minor rebellion was a form of protest for her order that he was not to rape any of the Frankish women.His recalcitrance mattered little at this point – her crew of seventy had driven the villagers out and killed most of those who remained, despite there having been four times the Danes’ number at the start.There was little sport in raiding these villages.She ached for a good battle, one that tested her.She felt as though she had not had that since before Njord’s death.

She strode from the burning farmhouse, sword in hand, and glanced around.Flames and black smoke singed the pale gray sky, and Bjorn and Hilde were striding from the village church with a knot of men behind them, all carrying sacks of whatever they had found inside. 

“Anything good, Bjorn?” she called, absently batting at a smoldering edge on her red wool cloak.

Bjorn and his wife grinned and held up two sacks.“Only some silver and some gold.”

“The stupid Christians always keep their best treasure in their churches,” Hilde chortled, shaking the sack, whose contents clinked about. 

“Well, if their nailed god can’t be bothered protecting it,” Ase retorted, “then he must not need it that badly.Is that all, then?”

Bjorn wiped his sooty face.“Well, there were some bones beneath the altar, but we’ve no use for some Christian saint’s remains, so we left them.”

“We could put them in a soup,” Ase jested.

“I wonder,” Ingrid called, sauntering up after them with another sack over her shoulder, “would we be cursed for that, or blessed?”

Rowdy laughter rippled through the group. 

Ase smirked, and glanced around.Her crew were busily dragging whatever they could take from the town’s homes and storehouses and barns.And still no sign of Harald.She nodded off toward the water where their large busse was moored.“Get it all back to the Nagelfar.Have any of you seen Harald?”

Ingrid jerked a thumb toward a barn some ways back.It was, like many things in this town, on fire.Ase squinted.“What’s he doing?”

Ingrid shrugged.

Ase broke into a long stride in the direction of the barn.She would be glad to be back on the open sea; the adrenaline of the raid having crested, the smell of the smoke had become oppressive. It would hang in her hair, her cloak, and even her leathers, for days. 

Two of her battle-scarred shield maidens went trudging past, dragging what looked like a large copper cookpot.

“That?” Ase demanded, wrinkling her nose. 

“We needed a new one,” Brida responded, a little out of breath.

Ase waved them on.

Cinders blew around in the air like snowflakes, some of them still smoldering.Her boots squelched in the mud.She kicked the barn door open.Its slam against the interior wall rattled the timbers.It was dark, apart from the long rectangle of yellow light that leapt across the shadowed floor from where she stood in the open door.Her silhouette filled half of it.Her eyes adjusted, then, and she discovered that Harald had found two things: a large supply of mead, and a terrified teenaged Frankish girl.His slightly heavy, slightly uneven gait suggested he’d probably spent a good deal of the raid taking advantage of the former, and was now planning to take advantage of the latter.

“What’s the matter, pretty girl?” he was slurring, just a little around the edges of his speech, but Ase could hear it.She saw his hands fumbling at the laces on his breeches.

“Harald!”Her voice was like thunder in the enclosed barn.She sometimes suspected that half her ability to command was her mastery of the tone and power of her voice. 

He froze and looked in her direction.He had not noticed her, even when she had kicked the door open.She had seen her oarsman in worse condition, but this was not his best day.“Ah… Ase,” he responded, with drunk forced-cheer, “you seem upset with me.”

She walked closer to him.She was a tall woman, though not as tall as Harald the Large, but he was wise to be a little afraid of her.She’d killed many men and wounded scores more, and she knew that now, with her cloak swinging behind her, the coiled set of her shoulders and jaw, and the cinders swirling around her, she struck a frightening figure. She could see the flicker of fear in his eyes as she drew toward him, seething.“You lit a farmhouse on fire while I was inside it.”

“I … I did not know you were inside!” he stammered.“Ase, I swear to you, I did not know!”

She stared up at him, hand grasping the pommel of her sword, as she stepped closer to him, her naked, blood-drenched blade pointed toward the ground, for the moment.“And I also told you,” she went on frigidly, “that you were to leave the women and girls alone.”

“Ase…” he began to protest. 

She cut him off.“Harald.”

She glanced over at the girl and waved a dismissive hand.The girl, fair-haired and trembling, gaped with disbelief for a moment, and then ran off. 

“Either you are one of my men, or you are not one of my men.If you are, then do what I fucking tell you to do.”

He started to reach down to his waist for his own shortsword.Ase snorted.They had been through this on more than one occasion.Her free arm drew back, and then her metal-clad fist barrelled directly into Harald’s crotch.She didn’t even feel the impact.She never did.He slowly collapsed in agony, wheezing.He lay still on the dirt and straw for a moment, before groaning, “Ase…”

“Once you can stand again, get those horses hooked to a wagon and get these barrels of mead onto it.Get it out to the Nagelfar.”She looked down at him with a kind of fond irritation while he still rocked back and forth a little in the dust.“Hurry up, or I’ll punch you in the cock again for taking too long.”

 

*****

 

Harald, in the end, always did what he was told. 

Ase knew that there were many stories among the crew and the people of Langadalr as to the story behind the mad-looking white streak in her hair.She kept it braided and stuffed up among the rest of her hair, but it nevertheless was often the subject of conversation. 

Ase tapped one of the barrels and passed cups of mead among the crew. She stood near the dragon-head of her ship, watching them prepare to head out, surveying them as they swarmed around the deck, preparing their places.Halftan stole up and took a cup from her.He had only joined her at the start of this voyage, but he had proven worthy enough so far.“Ase,” he said conspiratorially, “is it true that your white braid is where Tyr left his mark on you?”

Ase snorted.“Who told this idiot to ask me about the braid?” she bellowed out to the crew as they bustled back and forth.Harald’s snickering told Ase that it had been his doing.“You’re looking for another punch in the cock, then?”

“Only if you kiss me first, Ase,” he replied jovially. 

“Harald, if we both die, and both go to Valhalla, and are the only two warriors who are never called to fight at Ragnarok, you will still be waiting for me to kiss you.”

The nearby crew laughed.Harald didn’t seem bothered and went back to spreading his blanket over the seat near his oar.

Ingrid approached and took the cup Ase held out to her.“So, where’s next, then?We go home?”

Ase shook her head and smiled, mysterious.They gazed evenly at one another over a long, shared sip of mead. 

“Where, then?” Ingrid finally demanded.

Ase turned and pointed west.Cliffs loomed in the distance, dark brown but laced with white.“Past there.”

“That is what the Frisians call Doverstraat, isn’t it?”

Ase nodded.“Yes, and on the other side of it is England.”

“We have enough,” Ingrid groused, turning the cup around in her hands.“The deck below is stuffed with treasure.Let’s go home.”

Again, Ase shook her head.“No.First, England.What they call Suth-sæxe.”

“There’s nothing there!” Ingrid protested.Then she smirked, recognition dawning on her face.“Looking to outdo your dead husband, eh?”

Ase ignored the taunt, merely giving her a raised eyebrow.“Was there someone on this ship who did not know this?”

Bjorn, who had been quietly standing behind Ase, spoke now.“I knew it,” he remarked.“And if Ase says we are going to Suth-sæxe, then we go to Suth-sæxe.” 

Ase smiled.Bjorn was a good man.Njord had been lucky to have his service, and now Ase was lucky as well.“You, Ingrid, will be able to say that you are the first Dane to sail to Suth-sæxe.”

Ingrid snorted, throwing a free hand up into the air.Ase knew appealing to her ego was the best means of extracting cooperation. “Fine.Suth-sæxe.”She flounced away toprepare her own gear for departure. 

Bjorn edged nearer, smiling.He scratched at the shaved part of his blond head.“Why, Ase?Why is it so important to you to surpass Njord in every way?Do you think you’re better than he was?”

“I know I am better than he was,” Ase replied flatly.She gave him a knowing look.“He would not have driven the Swedes back without me.”

Bjorn chuckled, Ase supposed, at her arrogance.“Which time?”

“Both of them,” she retorted. 

“Don’t worry,” he reassured her, “everyone knows that.”He said this with the tone that weary husbands sometimes used to swear to their wives that yes, they were the prettiest wife in the village.

Ase was growing annoyed. “Don’t you care how you’re remembered when you die, Bjorn Andvettson?”

Bjorn grinned.“I only care what Hilde thinks of me.”He paused.“Hilde and you.”

The sky was still overcast and pale, but Ingrid was navigating and she knew where they were headed.She could see it plainly, even without her sunstone.

Ase clapped him on the shoulder, nodding slowly.“Good man,” she said.

She turned toward the distant cliffs, eyeing them through the haze and smoke that was still hanging in the air from the town.Doverstraat.Suth-sæxe.She did not know what was there but she needed to set her boots on that soil and claim it, as Njord had never done. 

The sky opened then, in the distance, and through the ragged hole in the thick, pale clouds, a finger of sunlight poked through, slanting down onto the marbled faces of the cliffs.Tyr had shown her victory after victory, and now he had opened the sky to point her way to Suth-sæxe, to approve of her destination, and tell her that his hand would be upon her when she arrived.Glory in battle, the shining sun, the fulfillment of justice; there were reasons she Tyr was her deity. 

And like him, she had paid for divine favor with a sacrifice.

 


	3. What Good Is A Samurai Who Does Not Keep Her Oaths?

“It is said that what is called "the spirit of an age" is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world's coming to an end. For this reason, although one would like to change today's world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation.”  
  
–Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure 

 

  
Aguri had pictured her own death thousands upon thousands of times.

She fell asleep each night, her mind imagining how she might be devoured by flames that charred the flesh from her bones, or beheaded, or take a blade through the chest. She did this so that she would wake in the morning peaceful, and prepared to die. 

This particular morning, Amaterasu’s light was dimmed by a pale grey cover of cloud that stretched across the heavens.The red leaves in the maple trees stood out against it in sharp contrast, splashes of red paint against the sky.Aguri’s horse’s hooves were nearly silent as she rode the dirt road, still soft after an overnight rain.Three of her husband’s retainers rode behind her.They were decent samurai, she mused. It was going to be a shame to have to kill them.

“…but who are they, really?” one was asking the other, sounding uncomfortable.“They just seem like nobodies.”

“How can you even tell?” the other demanded.

“Nobody important lives in this part of the valley, Riku,” said the first, trying to keep his voice down. “I mean, they don’t even have a surname, I’m told.”

“I can hear you, Junichiro,” she called to him without turning around.

“Apologies, General.”

No more chatter emanated from behind her after that.

She was conscious as they trotted along of the farmers scurrying into their houses at the sight of her on her black mare, in her black kimono emblazoned with the crest of her family, the Inouye clan, in blue on one arm, and the crest of her husband, the Yorihime clan, on the other in red.She rode always with two wakizashi shortswords in her belt, and a naginata strapped to her horse.She had once had fame for being fearsome with both.Her marriage to Noboru had given her infamy.She once wore into battle armor emblazoned with Amaterasu’s image, a great golden sun, but no-one called her Amateratsu’s Hand anymore.

They drew nearer to the house.It was humble, by any measure.She knew it, because she had visited these people many times when she was a young warrior just learning _bushido_. They had been kind to her when her family had ejected her for choosing _bushido_ over marriage and children. 

The house had a thatched roof and the floors inside were probably still covered with the same worn-thin tatami mats she had seen the last time she was in it.She reined her horse in, pulling her to a stop near the fence.She gave another glance over her shoulder, and looked at the three samurai behind her, knowing this would likely be the last time they would look upon one another as friends.Then, she dismounted.

Ugomori’s house was a small, friendly place with a pyramid-shaped thatched roof. She clomped up onto the timber-floored veranda, followed by the three, and rapped on the frame of the _shoji_ screen.“Ugomori!” she called, her voice stern and thunderous enough to rattle the screen.

She heard shuffling within, and an aging man in tatty hakama trousers opened the screen.He gazed for a long moment at Aguri, and then the retinue behind her.“I don’t suppose Yorihime Noboru’s chief enforcer has come to my house for a bowl of soup?”He sounded weary. 

Aguri shook her head.“No, Ugomori.”She gripped the hilt of one of her wakizashi.This did not escape Ugomori’s notice and she saw the weariness in his face deepen.She smelled soup cooking from within, and heard the quiet back and forth of Ugomori’s wife and young sons.

“I thought not.”His eyes dipped down to her hand, still gripping her sword.“Get on with it, then.”

“Yorihime Noboru suspects you and your family of crimes against him,” she announced in a cold, dispassionate voice.“You are suspected of fomenting dissent, of withholding from your lord the portion of your earnings that he is due, and encouraging others to do the same.You are accused of hampering the prosperity of the shogunate.”

“The prosperity of your husband,” he said bitterly. 

Aguri said nothing.

In the house, it went dead silent. “Well, then,” Ugomori said quietly, “do what you came to do, just make it quick.And if you would leave my family out of it, Aguri, I would be grateful.”

She heard his wife inside let out a sob.

The steel sang as she drew her sword.Ugomori bowed his head.

“No,” Aguri said. “I will not.”

The samurai behind her gasped.They were surprised that even she would exercise such cruelty. 

She turned around to them.“Riku, Junichiro, Hinata, I am sorry that Lord Noboru insisted you accompany me today.”And then she rushed at them, blade raised, glinting even under the gloom of the day.

She had stabbed Riku in the stomach and had withdrawn her blade before the other two samurai had recovered from their shock enough to draw their own swords.Riku sank onto the grass, groaning.“I am… I am undone…”

Ugomori was shouting for his family now, as she pressed forward and engaged Junichiro and Hinata. 

“But why?” Hinata demanded as he deflected her blows.

“Ugomori!” Aguri said in answer. She was not looking at the farmer, but focusing on the two samurai, who had split in opposite directions on either side of her, forcing her to defend in two directions at once.“Take your family and leave the valley!”

Junichiro stood between her and her horse, where her naginata remained strapped to its tacking.He and Hinata circled her, hesitant to actually strike.She was, after all, their commander.And yet suddenly, she was the enemy.Ugomori had his family and was hurrying from the house with whatever they could grab and carry.Hinata saw them stealing away and broke away from engaging Aguri in order to prevent Ugomori and his family from leaving.

“Take the horses!” she called to them.She pursued Hinata, knowing that turning her back to Junichiro would likely cost her.But she was Inouye Aguri, Amaterasu’s Hand, and she had imagined her own death a thousand times.She cut at Hinata’s back as he ran toward the family, and she heard the tearing of fabric and saw blood that told her she had torn flesh along with it.He stumbled, then turned and faced her. 

“Lord Noboru will kill all of us for what you have done!” he cried, lunging at her with his blade extended. 

She struck it away.She could hear Junichiro’s footsteps behind her, and drew her other sword.She uttered a quick prayer under her breath that Amaterasu might shine on her once more.Junichiro was strong, and Hinata graceful, but Inouye Aguri surpassed them both.She felt this in her bones as she whirled and spun, striking at them, defending against them both at the same time.She was peripherally aware of Ugomori helping his two sons onto the horses.

“Junichiro!” Hinata cried.He jerked his head toward the horses.

Junichiro realized that the family was about to escape with their horses.He would not kill Aguri and then go back to Lord Noboru without at least being able to say that he had completed their task and killed the cattle farmer.Aguri knew Junichiro’s sense of duty to be steady as a mountain.So she had no choice.She had to pursue him.She could not allow him to do this duty.She ran forward and threw herself onto him, plunging her wakizashi into his back, toppling him forward.He pitched into the dirt, pulling himself off of her blade and giving a cry of pain as he landed.He had broken his fall with his hands, and the impact of it had clearly shot up his arm and into his shoulder.It bled. 

“Fear not, Junichiro,” she told him.“You will receive a samurai’s death.” 

She could hear Hinata approach behind her.She did not care.The act of killing a man who had fought under her command deserved a moment to respect the departure of the _tama_ from his body. _As the tama resides in all things, it has resided in you._

Junichiro stared up at her, defiant. 

She stabbed her twin blades into his chest, and he made a strangled cry, but still stared at her with blazing eyes.“I release you, Junichiro.”But Junichiro was refusing to go.

Hinata’s blade hummed through the air.He would strike at the middle of her back and put his blade through her heart.So she threw herself forward onto Junichiro’s body, and Hinata’s blade instead passed through her shoulder.She saw the point of his katana emerge from the front of her shoulder.But she had pictured this a thousand times.

She glanced up.Ugomori was at last climbing onto the fourth horse.They would be safe, now.It did not matter anymore what happened to her.

She collapsed on top of Junichiro.Hinata pulled his blade from her shoulder.A moment passed that was a split-second longer than it should have been.Hinata was hesitating in finishing her. 

She placed her hands in the dirt and pushed up to her feet.She bled, and it was hot and thick.Hinata was staring at her, a mixture of horror and grief on his face.“Aguri,” he said, still brandishing his steel, “why?”

She took a heavy step forward, shortsword raised.“Do you not know, Hinata, that you serve a wicked master?”

“I know,” he replied, “that until this very moment, I served an excellent general.”

“Yorihime Noboru is cruel and dangerous,” she explained.Her head was spinning and filled with painful little pinpricks of light. 

“But he is my lord,” Hinata countered.“My oath is my honor.What good is a samurai who does not keep his oaths?”

Aguri smiled bitterly.Blood was trickling down the inside of her sleeve.“What good, indeed,” she agreed sadly. 

Riku had been surprised.Junichiro had been strong, but too slow.Hinata, though, would give her a fight, and more so with the terrible wound that throbbed in her shoulder.That steel had passed all the way through and her shoulder burned as if it were in there still. 

She grew dizzier and could no longer see the intricacies of Hinata’s movements.She simply gave herself over to instinct, to her other senses, and to the will of the _kami_ , whatever that might be.She listened to his footsteps and the whizzing of his steel and his breathing.She felt uneven ground.She tasted the heat of his breath when he drew too close.And she felt the impact, over and over, how many times she could not say, of his steel on hers.

She did not even remember cutting him down.She stood over him, and gave him the same moment of respect she had given Junichiro.And then she walked to Riku, who was lying in the grass where she had left him.She knelt down and closed his hands around his sword.“I am sorry, Riku.I would not have Ugomori die today, and I know you are a samurai who keeps his oaths to his master, and that you would have killed him if I had not.”

“ _Ronin_ ,” he whispered, and his eyes closed.

Aguri never claimed to feel the _tama_ , the life force that animates all things, the way some did.But she watched it leave from Riku, and spent a somber moment with it.

 _Ronin,_ she thought. _Yes, that is what I am.If I survive._

 

 

****

 

She was seventeen when she had her first retainership with the Azai clan, her reputation already being something of a boon and a burden. Noboru had coaxed her away from them just in time to join Hideyoshi’s forces with him, and defeat the Azai decisively at the Battle of Anegawa.

He had been right in doing so; he was on the winning side and had brought her over to it with him, and it instilled some sense of obligation in her. Bringing over a warrior of such renown and promise burnished his reputation as a young fighter, and fighting alongside a spare prince (Noboru was a low-ranking bastard son of Oda Nobunaga) burnished hers. It had always been a mutually advantageous partnership. Eventually, it became equal parts obligation and love. He became a home for her to come to.

But before Noboru, there had been Ugomori, a friend and confidant of the brash, overconfident little _bushi_ she had once been.

Ugomori’s house was as she remembered it; humble, a little shabby, but well cared for.She stumbled through the rooms, searching until she found some cloth to bind her wound.She washed it hastily, wrapped the wound clumsily, and then looked around. 

It still smelled of soup in here.Ugomori’s wife had made miso that smelled exactly like that on many occasions when Aguri had visited them.“Don’t forget us when you become a famous samurai,” his wife would sometimes tease her.

A kettle of soup hung from the cieling over the ash-filled _irori_ hearth that was set into the wood floor. Smoke from it still curled upward into the thatch overhead.She found a small wooden bowl, dipped it into the pot, and drank from it.It would replenish her.And then what?

She had imagined her death a thousand times, and in truth, she had awoken from her dreams that morning serene and prepared for it.She had dreamt a blade, glowing an intense jade green, piercing through her chest, like an oni devil’s claw.She had intended that she would free Ugomori and his family, and die fighting the men in her retinue.But this had not happened.And now she did not know where to go.Ugomori’s family would be far away by now.Everyone in the valley feared her.There was no home for her to go to, and none who would take her in.The _daimyo’s_ enforcer, grievously wounded?She could die in their house!Who would want to bring such trouble upon themselves?

She ought to commit _jigai_ , she knew. _What good is a samurai who does not keep her oaths?_

In her light, buzzing head, she felt it reasonable that she should go to the woods of Mount Kuju to do this.It would not do to commit _jigai_ in Ugomori’s home, she thought.The tatami mats were worn, but they were not hers to spill her own blood on.She stumbled out the door, and began staggering toward the mountain.Yes, she thought, there would be a good place to die.Away from everyone.No-one to witness her, and her body, she hoped, never to be found, unless perhaps by some wandering _yamabushi_ that were rumored to live there.People would talk for ages about the mysterious vanishing of Inouye Aguri.Perhaps she is still alive, some would speculate.Perhaps she is planning a dramatic return, others would say.Some would guess that she was dead, and they would of course be correct.

 

 

*******

 

It would take half a day at most for word of what had happened to reach her husband.No-one would want to be the bearer of the news that three of his retainers were dead, Ugomori had fled with his family, and his wife was nowhere to be found.

Aguri could no longer feel her limbs as she struck further and further into the forest.It felt as though it had been night for a week.Several times she passed through a clearing or glade, or a stand of trees or a cluster of bamboo and wondered if it was a good place to slit her throat.Each time, she decided it was not.

She could not let Ugomori die.She had made an oath to him recklessly, a long time ago, but an oath nonetheless.She swore she would protect him and his family.It had never occurred to her that it would come into conflict one day with the multiple ways that she had sworn herself to her husband.

She encountered a stream.It was hard to tell, but the light coming through the the thick layers of pine seemed to be growing brighter again.Maybe the sun was rising. 

Beside the stream, a pair of pines beckoned.Yes, this would be a good place.She lowered her wounded self onto the soft bed of pine needles and looked up at the sky, which was now becoming painfully bright.Aguri tried to drown out the high pitched whine in her head.Her limbs felt numb and heavy.This was a good place, yes.She would do it at midday. 

Her eyes fell closed.

 


	4. The Unknowability of Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earlier that evening, Alex prepares for the final conflict

 

_Earlier That Night_

 

Alex lingered alone in the armory after the rest of the team had left.She gazed at the rows of kryptonite-based weapons, glowing green in the gloom.The bunker’s HVAC system hummed low and deep, at the edge of her consciousness.Which of these, she wondered, would she save the world with?The pulse rifle?The kryptonite pellet-shooter? 

Alex sank down in the middle of the floor, into a lotus position, and breathed until she found a place of silence.Not in the bunker, where all hands were preparing to charge into a heated battle against superhuman enemies bent on global domination.She drowned out the klaxons, the sounds of heavy boots jogging past the door, the muffled voices barking orders and the trash-talk of soldiers who were using jokes and obscenity to bury their fear of death.She wrapped all of those things in silence, and sought the quiet of her mind. 

She had found her way to meditation when the weight of her job had grown too much.Enhanced interrogation, extralegal imprisonment, sometimes a little light torture; her sense of right action and right intent had been growing grayer.She had begun to drink too much before and after battles.She became troubled that killing had become easy for her. 

Meditation had saved her.The disposition that all things should be done with right intent saved her.The sobriety that came with it saved her.Susan Vasquez, her junior lieutenant, always marveled at her nerves of steel.“It’s not like that,” Alex laughed, but she couldn’t explain.How could she make Susan understand that dharma was her bright lifeline in the dark, that the unknowability of everything was truth and comfort?

A greatsword caught her eye when she looked up.It was long, with a blade that curved upward at the end.She had trained before with something very much like it.She held it in two hands, tested its weight, swung it slowly through the air a couple of times.It was extremely well balanced.She didn’t know who was responsible for the shaping of kryptonite into this magnificent blade, but it was better than the best katana she’d ever held, and she’d held a few at this point.

The hydraulic door opened, and her commanding officer came in.“Agent Danvers.”He gazed at her choice with mild curiosity.“The sword?Really?”

She smiled wryly at him.“It feels appropriate.”There was something noble and very like the old ways in Astra.If it came to killing her, she wanted to at least look her in the eye.

J’onn smiled too, but his brow was furrowed in concern.“You’re hoping to get close enough to Astra to use that, huh?”

Alex threw her free hand up in surrender.“Yeah, what can I tell you?I still hold out hope.I want to try and talk to her.It would be good to have another Kryptonian on our side.And give Kara a piece of her family back.”

J’onn folded his arms and watched wordless as she slid the straps of the sheath around her chest and shoulders.“Is that all, Agent?”

Alex stopped for a moment.J’onn’s ability to read minds was a boon, except when it wasn’t.He knew that Astra made her feel strange and uneasy in ways beyond the mortal threat she represented. And if anything had left a footprint or a claw mark on the inside of her brain, J’onn knew what it was. He had information she didn’t. “Not all, sir.”

“You understand, Alex, that I’m going to do my job, right?If she’s got you down on the ground, I’m going to put her lights out.”

Alex bit her lip.“I know.”She met his gaze, and then said carefully, “I understand duty too, sir, and I will do mine if I have to.” 

J’onn nodded.“But you want to understand what happened to you. And this doesn’t feel quite right, does it.”

Alex nodded.How rare it was, after all, to find someone who carried such fire inside.And she still had questions.

“I warned you that was a possible side effect.”

“I know.” She felt a little thrown off of her stride now. “We have a mutual respect,” she said after a moment. “I think her actions are shit, but they’re coming from a right intent. My dharma name means compassion, sir. I’m just trying to live it.”But something else bothered her. They still didn’t really know the size of the force they were facing. She feared the team relying too heavily on J’onn.“J’onn… What if this goes sideways? What if you get buried?”

He looked her dead in the eye. “Then you’ll lead, as we both always knew you would.”

 

*****

 

“Smith!”

“Check!”

“Najani!”

“Check!”

“Thomas!”

“Check!”

Alex called off the squad one by one and they assembled one last time before rolling out.J’onn was the commander here, and so the pre-battle speeches were his domain, but she was happy to accept that.She rather preferred to be the quiet warrior who did what needed to be done.She listened to the boots falling into line.It was night, and in moments she would be in a chopper, suspended above the city, about to make war. _This is my home, and I am sworn to protect it._

Kara stood next to her, behind J’onn.She and Kara were symbols to the agents of everything they aspired to in battle; strong, fearless, clever, vigilant. 

“Non is mine,” Kara said in a clipped, quiet voice. 

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Alex responded, _sotto voce_.“Astra’s mine.”

Kara looked at her, curious.“Why?”

Alex glanced over at her sister.“I… someone has to deal with her, and you’re going to be busy.”

Kara shook her head slightly.“J’onn should handle her.”

Alex took a deep breath.“I just …I think maybe she’s not completely lost to you.”

Kara’s expression was neutral, but her voice betrayed her anger and grief.“That makes one of us.My aunt came here to conquer Earth.There’s nothing left of the woman I knew when I was a child. She thinks she can save the world by burning it down.”She took a few long, slow breaths. 

“She saved you from the Black Mercy,” Alex pointed out.

“ _You_ saved me,” Kara retorted.

“Yes, but I couldn’t have done it if she hadn’t given me what I needed. And I think we both know the risk that was involved in her doing that.” She sighed. “She reached out to me. I don’t know why, but she seems to feel like she respects me enough to talk to me. I don’t know if I can reach her now, but everything I’ve been taught about the virtue of compassion tells me that I have to try.”

Kara was not happy to concede this, but she did.She frowned and glanced at Alex’s back, where the sword was strapped.“You okay with that thing on your back?”

Alex shrugged.

“It’s not bothering the new tat?”

Alex shook her head.“Nah.The sheath sits at an angle that totally avoids the shoulder blade.It’s fine.”She looked at Kara with concern, at her flushed cheeks and the tiredness around her eyes.“What about you?You really up for this after your, um … what you just went through?”

Kara nodded stiffly.“Dying for it.”Checked rage seemed to vibrate in her sister’s entire frame. Another awkward silence fell, in which Alex checked all her straps and holsters and buckles a few times more.“What if you do turn her?” Kara asked after a moment.

Alex sighed.“Well, then the war really is over.It’ll just be picking up the pieces after that.”It had never occurred to Alex until just now, as Kara wrinkled her nose a little at the phrase, that there was another, more macabre way to think about “picking up the pieces.”

“And what if you don’t?”

Alex’s heart felt heavy.This was the inexorable pull she had not been able to escape from the moment that she and Astra had laid eyes on each other.She was both drawn to her, and also somehow filled with foreboding at the prospect of it.“We’ll just lock her up again.” 

“I’d almost rather you killed her.”

Alex winced.“You don’t mean that.”

Kara sighed.“I don’t mean it like that.I just … you know what happened to her in those cells downstairs, Alex.I hate the thought of putting her in there again, even with everything she’s done.”

Alex understood.Family was family.“But Non?”

“I don’t kill people,” she answered hotly. 

Alex gave her sister a sad smile.This was what it meant, she knew, to be who she was.The warrior who did the dirty jobs that nobody else had the stomach for. 

“Sorry,” Kara began.“I wasn’t saying that you–”

Alex touched her shoulder, staying her in mid-apology.“Don’t.We all have our roles to play, we all have our part.Just don’t do anything that you’ll regret later.”

“He’s not my blood,” Kara grumbled. 

Alex squeezed her shoulder once and let go.“Neither am I.”

This froze her adopted sister in mid-mutterance.She stared at Alex as if seeing her for the first time.Alex looked calmly back at her, and gently said, “I love you.And I have your back.”

Blood, people said, was thicker than water.But Alex knew that the original aphorism in its entirety was, “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”Promises, consciously made, bound one person to another more than the accident of one’s birth.And so it was for Alex; the scared, weird little girl who came into their home twelve years ago had managed to win Alex’s love and make her a sister.Alex had at first been resentful of having to care for and about Kara, but now Alex lived and died by her promise to always, always look out for her. 

J’onn was speaking to the team.“Left flank with me, right flank with Agent Danvers.Be ready for anything. If push comes to shove, we have to destroy those satellites and stop the signal from going out.Having Kryptonite weapons doesn’t make you invulnerable, so keep your heads on a swivel.Stay cool, and don’t do anything stupid while trying to be a hero.Remember that not all our targets are Kryptonian.And for the love of your various respective gods, keep the Kryptonite weapons pointed away from Supergirl.”

They strode out to the choppers in two tight formations.Kara jogged easily alongside Alex as they went.Vasquez moved up on her other side.“Hey ma’am.”

Alex nodded toward her.She had entered the pre-battle state of mind, where her words came fewer and farther between. 

“Can I ask you something?”

Alex nodded again.

“How do you stay so cool in combat?Is it the Zen thing? ‘Cause I’ve been wondering if I should give it a try.”

Alex’s mouth quirked.“I stay cool because I left the house this morning ready to die.”

Vasquez gave an admiring whistle.“That’s hardcore, ma’am.”She jogged up ahead of them to board the first chopper and help the team with their gear. 

Kara chuckled.“That’s a little dark,” she observed as Susan moved away from them.

Alex shrugged.“It’s the truth.People make mistakes in battle because they’re afraid of dying.If you’re not afraid of dying, it’s a lot easier.”

Kara frowned but didn’t pursue it.They climbed aboard together.

The mood inside the chopper was tense and the earlier rowdiness had given way to the black-clad crew of agents’ uneasy calm.Franks was muttering a rosary, and Kara had her own head bowed.Alex wasn’t sure if it was in thought or in prayer.Alex knew that Kara still remembered some of the songs and prayers from the Raoite liturgy.She began breathing deep and slow, clearing her mind, letting herself feel the world.The high-speeding thudding of the chopper blades slicing the air filled her ears.She felt the vibrations in her feet, under her seat.She felt the night air.She pushed the sense of terrible inevitability from her mind.

_What good is a soldier who isn’t ready to die?_

They lifted off the helipad and buzzed over the desert, two gigantic black, buzzing flies with a dozen soldiers each in them.As they hovered over the city, Alex had another thought. It was true, she wasn’t afraid to die. She was ready for it. She always had been. But so was Astra. They were cut from strangely similar cloth. _What if someone broke me the way Astra’s been broken? Would I be any better? Would I want anything more than to burn down the world to replace it with something better?_

Kara tensed beside her, and looked out the side of the chopper.“Non’s down there,” she said quietly.She shifted forward in her seat.

“Kara, you need to wait for J’onn’s go!” Alex exclaimed.

But it was no good.Kara leapt out the open side of the chopper, a blur of blue and red, heading straight for a speck on the ground that Alex could barely even see. 

“Supergirl’s on the move!” she yelled into her headset.

“I see that!” came J’onn’s irritated reply.She saw him leap from the other chopper that was hovering in the air beside them and follow after her, a silver streak in the night.

It was time to save the world.

 

 

 


	5. Moonflame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex in 7th century Sussex, as Ardith, encountering the marauding Dane, Ase Ironhand, for the first time.

"Often, for undaunted courage,

fate spares the man it has not already marked."

— 

| 

Beowulf  
  
---|---  
  
 

 

“Hush, Leofric.”

Ardith soothed her suddenly anxious white stallion.He’d begun tossing his mane and fidgeting in place, for no reason she could figure out.His hooves sploshed about in the bog water and muck, some of which was spitting up onto her dress, though she barely noticed. 

“I think your construction has frightened him, _baedling,_ ” she said.

“Leofric is skittish on a good day,” Wyne shot back, tossing his chin pridefully.“And for the last time, I am not a _baedling_.”

Ardith grinned at him. 

“Does your father know you’re so crude?”

Ardith snorted.“Yes, and he agrees with me!It isn’t my fault you’re more girlish than I am.”

Wyne snorted.In truth, he was surprisingly strong for how slender he was, and as good with his hands as any man who didn’t read books, as Wyne did.Ardith didn’t mind his differentness.In truth, it was interesting. 

She gazed at the odd construction she had ridden out here to see.“Alright, so?Why did you drag me to the swamp?What is this thing?”

Standing shin-deep in the muddy bog, he proudly pounded on the side of the man-sized tindrum he had built.It stood on end in the muck, and bore a pipe that faced outward on one side, and an enormous bellows on the other side which seemed to be attached with rough rope the thickness of her thumb, to a dubious-looking wooden scaffold.The ropes wound round the splintering, un-sanded wood in various places to comprise some sort of rigging.A grey stone the size of a man’s head– probably stolen from the old Roman wall separating the village from the marsh– sat atop the rigging at the end of said rope.

“Just watch,” he said with twinkling eyes.He hunted through his pouch and pulled out a flint.

She continued squinting at the construction.“How’d you get the rock up there?”

“Leverage,” he replied, sounding pleased with himself.

Ardith’s father was the village chieftain, and so she knew how to read and write, which most in the village could not.To help with his business, she needed to be able to study and review proclamations, deeds, claims, contracts and such.She found Wyne’s books on naturalism and science interesting, but had little time for them.She suspected Wyne burned a good many candles in the evening after working wood with his father all day.

“Now….” He glanced at her saddle bag.“Have you got a torch in there?”

She sighed, reached in, pulled out a tightly-wound torch of dried marsh grass and handed it to him.

He took it, lit it with the flint, and then handed back to her.He sloshed around to the bellows.“Now, I want you to hold this in front of that… that pipe.Don’t stand in front of it, stay clear, to the side, you see?”He demonstrated quickly, then ran back.With Leofric’s edginess, she decided to dismount.Whatever was going to happen, he probably wasn’t going to like it.She slid into the chilly muck, clutching her skirts and ignoring the water seeping into her boots. She was too curious. 

She held the torch in front of the pipe.Wyne went round to the rigging.“Now watch.”He pulled something, and the large rock descended about a foot, and a fountain of flame as big around as Ardith’s fist shot from the torch that she held in front of the pipe.She yelped and dropped the torch.“Mymmerkin!” she exclaimed, as the torch plopped into the water and went out with a wisp of smoke. 

“Wench!” he shot back. 

Leofric reared up a little and gave a low, nervous whuffle.

She looked up at the pipe with annoyance.“So, what’s it for, then?”

Wyne rubbed his hands together.“See, it’s a better fire-start for a furnace.For the smelters.It’ll get much hotter than how they do it now, with the wood and stone and the bellows.”

“This has bellows too,” she pointed out.

“Aye,” he went on, getting excited.“But it’s not just pushing air out the pipe like it does in a regular furnace.”

She wrinkled her brow.“What, then?Hot oil?Don’t see where you’d heat it.”

He shook his head.“Swamp gas.”

She tilted her head.“Go on.”

“You’ve seen will o’ wisps in the swamps at night, yeah?”

She nodded. 

“It’s the stuff at the bottom of the swamp, it’s bubbling up and it comes up into the air and it catches fire.So I thought, well, I bet I could collect it you know, so I built this drum, but it’s got no bottom, so the gas comes from the swamp bed and it’s collected in here.”Excited, he pounded on the drum again, which obliged him with a booming noise.He walked around to the scaffold and started turning something on the rigging to pull the boulder back up again.“This works the bellows then and it pushes the gas out the pipe.You could connect it to the furnace and you’d have a blazing hot fire, fast as you like, shooting right out there.”He looked at her expectantly.

She put her hands on her hips, still hanging on to her dampened skirts.She was both annoyed and amused with his invention.“Does Cartimandua know you’re spending time and tin working on such a thing?”

“Cartimandua knows everything, whether we like it or not, and she hasn’t stopped me.”

Cartimandua was the lady of the manor, and her knowledge of all that happened on it was at times discomfiting.She had a way of knowing things.Still, Suth-Saexe was the last kingdom to fall to Christianity, and Cartimandua was perhaps the last manor-lord who didn’t care enough to force it on the people of her shires, despite having converted herself to stay clear of trouble with the king. 

“But why here?”

“It’s perfect,” Wyne explained, “we get the iron out of the bog anyway, and the gas provides itself.We could smelt it before we even brought it back to town.It’d be less weight to carry.Easier on the horses and wagons.And these fires — they’d be hotter than Svartr’s balls.”

“Does your mother know you’re so crude?”

Wyne only laughed.

“Jokum will see my dress and ask me what I was doing out here,” she observed.

“Your father doesn’t care if you’re with me.”

She chuckled.“Yes, he knows my virtue is safe.”

“Mine is safe from you, I should think.”

They laughed.Only a childhood friendship could be this easy.Jokum expected that she’d eventually marry Wyne, but she’d resisted so far, and he was in no rush to lose her to a husband, as she was indispensible to him. 

She tilted her head to listen, and heard the sound of footsteps sloshing through the marsh, coming closer.“Ardith!”

She squinted through the mists and saw her fourteen year old sister, Caja, running toward them.She seemed in a terrible hurry.

Ardith frowned. 

Caja began waving her arms.She was calling to them, but Ardith couldn’t make out the words.She swung herself up onto Leofric’s back once again, Wyne scrambling on behind her.They rode out together to meet Caja, who was frantically running toward them, stumbling in the grass and mud.

Ardith drew up beside her at last.“What is it?” she asked.

Caja stopped, and stood breathless in front of them.Then she panted, “Jokum sent me to get you.A ship has moored near the shore and Jetta says it’s a dragon boat.”

Jetta was a glass-blower, Moorish by birth, whose people had been in Suth-Saexe since the Romans had built Llundein, and his dark eyes were sharp as a hawk’s.If he saw a dragon boat, it was a dragon boat.

Only one dragon boat had been here before.It had been five years before.It had meant trouble.Ardith stared at Caja.“Jokum sent you to get us?”

Caja nodded.

Ardith sighed heavily and looked at Caja with sympathy. “Will you be alright?” she asked.

Caja nodded.“They are not my blood.”

Ardith nodded for a moment, taking in the significance of this turn of events.“Wait here, Caja.It’s not safe for you there.Wyne, we need to go arm ourselves.”

 

 

****

 

 

Leofric made haste back to her father’s house.She found Jokum in the barn, buckling a hand-width belt around himself over his long mail shirt.He was a tall, broad man, too dark to be a Dane but in many other respects, easily as formidable as one.His large, knotted hands and arms corded with thick ropes of muscle could easily handle a two-handed broadsword with the accuracy of a Christian church painter.

She grabbed a mail shirt off the chest of weapons beside his feet and began to wriggle into it and then pulled it down over her dress, the little rings of the mail catching on the rough linen of her dress.

“No breeches?” he inquired mildly.

She shook her head.“Breeches are an undertaking.Don’t think we’ve got time.”

He nodded.He handed her a sword. 

She stopped and looked at the gleaming blade.“Is it new?”

“Yes,” he said.“And it’s yours.”

She admired it for a long moment.“Thank you,” she whispered. 

“It’s time you had your own, since it’s likely you’re going to be chieftain one day.”

She smiled.She took the sword and held it.It was a broadsword of the variety she’d learned on, but it was of better quality than anything she’d owned.The face of the blade was brushed so it shone like the face of the moon.“Do you think Caja will be upset if I call it Dragon Slayer?”

Jokum raised an eyebrow.“Probably.”

She shrugged.She looked at the swirling pattern that licked its way up the steel, etched lightly so that one could only see it if the light hit it a certain way.“Moonflame it is, then.” 

 

 

****

 

 

It took time to get up onto land from where the Danes had moored, but not that much time.So the normal, idyllic pace of the village was replaced by a tense urgency.The men of the village, and some of the women, had armed themselves and were preparing to fend off the invaders as they’d done five years ago.

Jokum knew they would approach from the water and that there was only one way to the village from the water.He knew that the Danes had already seen the smoke of the cookfires and kilns and forges, so there was no point putting them out.They knew where the village was.Jetta spotted their approach.

Jokum stood in lead, holding his sword, Viper’s Bite, and raw wooden roundshield with the threatening-looking iron cone over the sheild boss. He was flanked by Ardith and another man.Wyne rest were arrayed behind them.Jetta was perched on top of the old stone wall that still stood from when the Romans had been here, his bow in hand and a quiver full of arrows on his back.A few had wooden roundshield not unlike the Danes’, though it wouldn’t make much of a shield wall if it really came to that.Those who didn’t have swords were armed with farming tools.Ardith wondered if the sight of their hastily pitched defenses would be enough to make the Danes change their mind.At nineteen years old, she’d seen and heard enough of the world to suspect it probably wouldn’t.

But she was ready to fight.She was always ready to fight a good war.

When they finally came, the group was smaller than expected.They were only ten. 

The men all sported long hair, neatly trimmed beards, leather armor.Their eyes were smeared black with malice.The women looked as fearsome and wild as the men did.Their swords looked sharp.And their leader was a tall, frighteningly beautiful Dane in a fur cloak, a single white braid in her mass of auburn hair, carrying a blue wooden roundshield with a rune painted on it in black.Ardith had learned bits and pieces from Caja in the years that she’d been with the family, and was quick to spot that all of these Danes had several arm rings each, and that the woman who was clearly leading them had the most of all.Arm rings meant status and accomplishment as a warrior.

“These are fierce warriors,” she whispered to her father.“Look at all of those arm rings.”

“You are a fierce warrior too,” he responded quietly.Ardith knew this was so, but nevertheless; Danes were feared and the rumors of their superhuman ferocity were not exaggerated.

The Danes moved forward toward them.Their hands were on their weapons but they were not drawn.The woman who was leading them gazed at the group.Ardith felt a shiver in her gut.She stood on the soft ground, in her dress and chainmail, sword drawn because she had nowhere to sheath it.Everyone fell silent as the Danes walked forward.They stopped and looked at the villagers.The villagers outnumbered them three to one, but it was still hardly a foregone conclusion that this would be enough to dissuade them.

Jokum met the woman’s eyes.“We do not lay down for you here, as the Frisians do.”

The woman smiled and shrugged.She didn’t understand.She pointed at him.“Jarl?”

“She wants to know if you’re the earl,” Ardith whispered.

Jokum nodded.“Close enough.Yes,” he said, “Jarl.”He pointed to himself.Then he gestured at the group assembled behind him.“My people.”He pointed to himself again.Then he pointed up to where Jetta stood on the wall, arrow nocked.“My bowman.”He pointed to the water.“You should leave now.”

“It would be useful to have Caja here,” Wyne muttered.“Nobody else here speaks Danish.”

“Caja should not be anywhere near this,” Ardith chastised him quietly, fiercely.Wyne clamped his mouth shut after that.“Besides, she’s taught me a few words.”

The woman surveyed Jokum, then the rest of the assembled.Her eyes lingered for a moment on Ardith and she felt that same shiver. _I am going to kill her,_ she thought.

Ardith knew how to fight. Her father had trained her since she was even younger then Caja, and she knew how much strength lay coiled in her slender frame, and how much skill in her sword arms.Moonflame was a broadsword, and she knew how to swing it so well as to splinter those wooden roundshields.She had fought the Danes when they came here before, when she was a petulant teenager.She had not killed in that fight.It was strange to feel such an inevitability as she stood looking at the tall woman.

The others looked amused, or bored, or were grinning among themselves or picking their teeth.One of them addressed the leader and said something in Danish.Ardith was fairly sure she picked up the word “contest.” The Dane turned back to them and said something, gestured between herself and Jokum.

“I think she wants to fight you,” Ardith said warily.“I don’t think you should.”

Jokum surveyed the Dane.“I know how to handle myself.”

“It is not a good idea,” Ardith pressed. 

“I fight her, I win, they leave.I fight her, I lose, they still have to get through all of you.”

“These are Danes!” she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.“If you lose, you are dead and then who will lead?”

He turned to her and looked her dead in the eye.“Then you will lead.As we both always knew you would.”

Ardith felt a coldness in her chest as her father turned back to the Dane, looked her over once, and stepped forward, sword at the ready.And then, to Ardith’s horror, her father tossed his shield aside, gazing at the Dane with his chin raised and a challenge in his eyes.

The Dane smiled and nodded with approval and the warriors behind her whooped.The woman turned to her people and a younger man with long blond hair tied back emerged from the group, and took her shield from her.He handed her his broadsword.This struck Ardith; Jokum was not fighting with a shield, so neither would the Dane.He was fighting with a broadsword, so would she.She meant to make it a fair fight.

Somehow, this only chilled Ardith more.That the Dane did not feel she needed to seize any advantage she might have was troubling in its own right.

Jokum planted himself, in a low, limber stance.The Dane gave the broadsword a few quick practice swings and Ardith trembled at the ease with which she handled it.Her stomach clenched.

The two leaders gave one another a brief nod of acknowledgement and respect, and then, it began.Ardith had seen fights between two men of this type before, and usually they spent several minutes circling one another before beginning to trade blows.Her father did not wait.He meant to establish himself immediately and put the Dane on the defensive; first swinging inside, then outside, then plunging in for a thrust.Each swing met her steel and rang loud in the unnatural quiet of the afternoon. It felt as if all the world was holding its breath. 

She was not back on her heels for more than a split second, though, and came back toward him, trading one blow for another, driving him back.Their steel rang, and rang, and rang again.The sound was excruciating.Each one meant death averted.They broke, circled one another for a moment, each trying to find the advantage on the other.They clashed again.Jokum brought his sword down in a forward stroke against the Dane’s, and Ardith felt the ground disappear from underneath her as she heard an awful sound: the ring of steel cut short as though it was a note caught in someone’s throat, and then, in almost the same instant, a dull thunk. She watched her father’s blade snap clean off, near the hilt.Her heart sank.

Her father stood defiant, daring the Dane to strike him, but she seemed not to want to.It was almost as if she was enjoying herself too much and did not want it to be done with yet.One of the Saxon men tossed Jokum another sword, and the Dane nodded.She pressed forward.

She took a cut at his neck, but he met her blade with his, and they remained thus for several moments, struggling to keep footing in the soft ground, each pressing back against the other with all their considerable might.The Dane shifted her weight, and brought the hilt of her sword around to strike Jokum in the head.Ardith gasped.She saw blood staining her father’s temple.He stumbled backward, his body turning, and narrowly missing a cut from the Dane’s sweeping blade.

He found her where she had left herself open in that moment, and thrust his sword up into her shoulder.She looked surprised as she staggered backward, her iron-clad hand clapped over the wound.The Danes began beating their swords on their shields and chanting what Ardith assumed was the woman’s name:“ _Ase!Ase!Ase!_ ”

The Saxons began to beat on their shields as well, and pound their weapons into the dirt.The competing rhythms of their pounding throbbed in the bottoms of Ardith’s feet.

Her father, still not quite right from the blow he’d taken to the head, saw this as his moment to strike, while the Dane was stumbling back.Ardith could tell that it had not been a deep cut, but she was indeed bleeding, and seemed a little surprised.This only increased the savagery of her smile.Her father’s face was turned from her but she knew his eyes would be like flint, staring down the Dane as they prepared to have another cut at one another.

Jokum moved forward, taking two swings that whistled through the air in front of the Dane as she staggered back.He pressed forward and with his free hand, grabbed the Dane by her wounded shoulder.Ardith saw pain twist the woman’s mouth as Jokum pressed her, and drew his sword arm back to strike and finish her.Ardith fingered the cat charm around her neck, her tribute and bond to the goddess Freya, and silently prayed, to her and Woden and anyone else who might be watching, that this fight would end now. 

She watched as Viper’s Breath moved in to strike.It was deflected away by the Dane’s blade, and then Ardith saw that iron-clad fist hit her father in the gut, once, and then again.He slumped forward.The Dane lurched past him and drove her sword backwards into his back.Ardith heard it pierce his mail shirt.She saw the blade pulled out.Her heart thudded in her stomach and heat roiled in her blood.

She did not wait for his body to hit the ground.“SHIELD WALL!!” she cried to the assembled, and they dutifully clustered behind her, sheilds locked together before them in a ragtag wall.She ran at the Dane, sword raised, heart full of rage, ready to avenge. 

The Danes scrambled their own smaller shield wall.The tall woman, Ase, blocked her blows, though with her wounds, struggled slightly.Ardith’s eyes blazed with fury, and in that moment, her rage made her twice the height of the towering, frightening Dane with her sword and red cloak and black smeared on her eyes.The Dane still seemed to be having a glorious time.This made Ardith angrier still.She swung three times, which the Dane deflected, and then her eyes lit upon that iron-gloved hand.The Dane cut at her head, but Ardith ducked low.The blade whistled just above her head.She swung her sword at the Dane’s wrist, aiming to take that hand from her.

A shock reverberated up her arm as her blade clanged against the Dane’s wrist.It was no iron glove, she realized, as her sword only barely bit into the metal.It was an iron hand.

She had swung with such force, and had not expected such resistance, and so the blade was knocked from her own hand by the force of her blow.The Dane smiled and kicked her backwards.She sprawled onto her back, rolled out of the way of a plunging blade that might well have been the end of her.She looked around wildly.“JETTA!”she shouted.

He quickly nocked an arrow and fired at the Dane.She held up the iron hand and it struck with a metallic thunk, then bounced away harmlessly.But it distracted the woman long enough for Ardith to roll over and grab Jokum’s discarded shield from the dirt.Moonflame was on the ground, on the other side of where the Dane stood, so Ardith charged the Dane with shield in front of her, swinging its rawhide edge at her.The Dane laughed and parried with her iron hand, then with two strikes, splintered the shield in two.She knocked Ardith into the dirt.

The Danes were now advancing on the villagers.“I’ll deal with her!” Ardith called to Jetta.“Get the others!”

She heard the reassuring sound of his arrows whistling through the air and landing with satisfying thumps into the Danes’ wooden shields, slowing their advance.

The Dane stood over her.Ardith prayed to every last one of the gods she knew of. 

The Dane knelt down before her, gazing at her with a pleased, triumphant look, but also one that seemed ravenously hungry.And then Ase set down her sword, reached out with her hand of flesh and bone, and stroked Ardith’s cheek.

It was a strange, soft, spidery touch, curious and tender.The gentleness of it was terrifying.Ardith shuddered, and jerked her her head away.The woman said something in Danish, but Ardith’s mind was racing too fast to remember the few words she had ever known. 

A golden-haired blur came from behind them, tackling the Dane, and knocking her to the ground.It was Caja, and she was screaming in Danish and trying to hack at the Dane with a very small sword.Ardith was at once relieved and angry.Caja had no business here.It was too dangerous. 

Ase kicked Caja away, and picked up her sword again.A quick exchange between them happened in Danish.Ardith scrambled to her feet and picked up Moonflame again, and came at Ase.“LEAVE HER ALONE!” she commanded.

Now the woman had two angry girls on either side of her, and one of them was yelling at her in Danish.It seemed to be enough to give her pause.She called out to her slowly advancing men.They stopped, remaining in position.Jetta’s arrows ceased flying.Ardith watched her.They stared at one another for a long moment.Ase gave her a respectful nod, never breaking eye contact, and then the Danes made a slow retreat, backing down the path they had come until they were out of range of Jetta’s arrows.

Ardith angrily threw her sword down.“Caja!I told you to stay away!”

“You were fighting at my age!” Caja shot back.“Besides, I just saved your life!”She stood angrily, holding her little shortsword with a white-knuckled grip.

“Yes, but I was trained!”

“So am I!”

Ardith pressed her hands to her temples.“Not now, Caja.”She ran to her father’s side.He was pale.She knelt down, her eyes hot with waiting tears.“Father…”

He struggled, forcing his eyes to remain open for her.“They look to you now,” he whispered.“Do what needs to be done.”

She blinked, clutching his sleeve.“No… I am not as good as you…”

“You are better…”His eyes closed.She touched his wrist.He still had a weak pulse.She gestured to Wyne and two other men, and they moved him gingerly to a stable nearby and laid him in the straw.Ardith covered him with a saddle blanket and sat numbly beside him, hand clasped around his wrist, refusing to be moved until the life no longer fluttered in his veins.

Caja tried to bring her something to drink, but she turned it away.Wyne came a little while later.“Ardith,” he said gently.“What should we do?”

Her eyes were glassy, and stung with unshed tears.“Tell them to start sharpening sticks.The Danes will be back, and soon,” she said darkly.“And … there will be more of them.”

She took Viper’s Bite and laid it on her father’s chest, closing his fingers around it.He would go home a warrior, to a place of honor, with his sword in hand.


	6. Tying is for Quitters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Alex, in this incarnation as a Zen buddhist nun who discovered Inouye Aguri in the woods on the mountainside

 

Aguri awoke, her shoulder still throbbing.She could see nothing.She could not feel Amaterasu’s light on her face.Even stranger still was the quiet.She had fallen asleep dimly aware of forest sounds - animals, branches creaking, birds, the trickling stream… that was all gone.Had she died?Had she failed to commit _jigai_ before her wound had done the work for her?

But no, she thought, her mind still clawing its way to consciousness.It was a bad wound, but she had suffered worse on the battlefield for her lord and husband, Noboru.This could not be death. 

She smelled faint incense, notes of jinkoh and sandalwood, a salty edge that stirred memories of Ugomori’s home in winter, and of the saffron robes of Buddhist monks who sometimes came to the markets. 

Her eyes snapped open.

A young woman, perhaps ten years her junior, stood over her in the dim light, a wooden staff grasped with light confidence in her slender hands.Aguri quickly took in the saffron robes, the waraji sandals, the head shaven in the style of the warrior monks and martial nuns, the quickness with which she leveled the end of her staff toward Aguri.Aguri instinctively reached to her waist for her twin blades.They were gone. 

“Missing something?” the younger woman asked, not unkindly.

“Those swords were mine. Made for my husband by Ishiwara Tetsu.” The great sword maker had retired some ten years ago, and his blades were now prized for both their craftsmanship and their rarity.Exhausted and still-foggy as she was, she found her hackles raising that the nun would have dared to take them from her.

The nun made a little sound of surprise. “It surprises me that he would make swords for someone like your husband. Didn’t he ever tell you what the true purpose of Japanese steel is?”

“It’s to kill with, isn’t it?” Aguri said dryly.

“I doubt that’s what he told you.”

Aguri frowned.She was still feeling too weak to sit up, but she nevertheless tried.The young woman watched her with mild amusement for a moment.Aguri surrendered and collapsed onto whatever it was she was lying on.

“Are you quite finished?” the nun asked her.

The room was dim, with a small amount of light coming through a narrow window near the top of the wall.Aguri was not quite finished, she decided, and tried again to sit up.Once again, after struggling in vain for a few moments, she relaxed again.“Now I am finished,” she groaned wearily.

“If you intended to commit _jigai_ , I am sorry to inform you, I have taken your weapons.”

Aguri nodded.Her heart was picking up its pace, as she began to realize that she was entirely at this woman’s mercy.Her face was pretty, but her eyes had a knowing look to them, a spark that left Aguri anxious and afraid.She looked cautiously at the young woman.“You are yamabushi?” she asked. 

The nun tilted her head.“Not exactly, no. Just a nun.”

Aguri spent another moment letting her mind continue to shake itself out of its smothering darkness and tried to take in the rest of the room.She saw upon the wall a beautifully done piece of calligraphy that she recognized.It was a symbol of Zen Buddhism.“I thought,” she remarked, reclaiming the archness for which she had been known, “that the convents were the laundry rooms of the monasteries.”

The young nun shrugged.“This one is not.”

“What sort of convent is this, then?”

“The best kind.”The young nun set aside her staff, deciding that Aguri was no threat.She drew closer, and crouched down close to where Aguri lay on a thin bedroll. 

Aguri had enough sense about her to realize that she only had on her hadajuban and susoyoke, the thin white undershirt and half-slip that she had been wearing underneath her kimono.She felt strangely exposed.Why should she care what the nun saw?It occurred to her that it was not her nakedness that troubled her, so much as her total vulnerability.Her black kimono with its shocks of bright color were better protection than the best bamboo armor.People knew it.It struck fear in them.Who would be afraid of her now?She was no longer Inouye Aguri; she was only some wounded woman in her underwear.

She then noticed that her shoulder was bandaged.She smelled herbs mingling with the warm, woody incense that drifted in from elsewhere.“You mended me,” she sighed, shame creeping red into her cheeks.This had not gone as she had intended.Not at all.

“Yes,” the nun replied, smirking.“It was not a popular decision.”

Aguri’s eyes narrowed. Her mind caught up with their conversation. “You know who I am.”

“Yes, Inouye Aguri.  Lord Yorihime Noboru’s right hand. Your cruelty is well known.My sisters and brothers were not anxious for me to receive you here after you were found invading our forest.”

“Then you should have left me to die,” Aguri snapped. 

The nun reached out to her, and gently touched Aguri’s forehead where beads of sweat had begun to break as her anger, fear and shame began to grow.She dabbed the sweat away with a cloth, and then stroked her cheek once.“Your death is not my decision to make,” she told her.“Besides, how were we to know that you were not sent by him to make trouble for us?”

Aguri fell silent, glaring at the younger woman with a simmering frustration.“Then you have not heard,” she finally said.

The nun continued gazing at her, wordless, waiting for her to go on.

“I have betrayed Lord Yorihime Noboru, killed three of his retainers, and arranged for the escape of Ugomori, whom my lord had wanted me to put to death.”Just speaking the words out loud was exhausting.Riku, Junichiro and Hinata had served her well.She hated to kill them.

The nun looked upon her with interest, but said nothing more. 

Aguri went on.“My lord commanded me to kill Ugomori, but there was no proof he had done any wrong.”

The young nun clucked her tongue, and with a sly look, prodded her, “What good is a samurai who does not keep her oath to her master?”

Aguri was still too exhausted and in too much pain to sustain her anger so stoically.Her chin began to tremble.“None,” she said stiffly.“One’s oath is paramount in maintaining one’s honor.It is why I was prepared to commit _jigai_ , until you interfered.”

“I did not interrupt your _jigai_ ,” the nun responded lightly.“You were sleeping next to the stream.Your wound could well have killed you and then what sort of honor would there be in such a death?You would have been deprived of your _jigai_.You should be thanking me.”She rose, and poured a steaming, fragrant cup of sencha tea from a cast iron pot on a small table near the door. She knelt beside Aguri and raised the cup to her lips. 

Aguri turned her head, not wanting to accept the nun’s care.

“Do not be a child,” the young woman scolded her gently.“The sooner you heal, the sooner you may go and commit _jigai_.”

Aguri allowed the nun to slip a hand behind her head and lift it a bit, and then reluctantly drank from the cup held to her lips.The warm, green-tasting liquid poured down her throat and only then did she notice how parched she was.She tilted her head forward, indicating that she wanted more.The nun patiently drained the cup into Aguri’s mouth, then set it aside.

“That will help you to heal,” she said.“But you must also sleep.”She leaned down and drew a light blanket up over Aguri.Aguri was grateful to be covered. 

The nun walked softly toward the door of the small room.

“You know my name,” Aguri called weakly after her.“But I do not know yours.” 

The young woman stopped and looked at her, her lips drawn into the faintest of smiles.“You may call me Myoge.” 

 

 

****

 

 

Four nuns and a monk were whispering amongst themselves outside the door of Konjen Roshi’s rooms when Myoge arrived there.They immediately stopped when they saw her.“Myoge,” said the monk, Wataru. 

She nodded to them respectfully.“Is the roshi in his room?”

One of the nuns nodded.“Yes.He has been waiting for you.”

Myoge did not like the tone with which the nun said this.“If you spent as much time on your lotus sutras as you do on gossip you would be roshi by now.”The nun gave her a sour look as she walked in.She pushed the screen aside and found him seated in his spacious, airy room with all the screens open, carefully arranging a long stalk of orange osmanthus flowers with their cheerful blossoms in a pot with two lilies and some grasses.

“They are beautiful, Konjen Roshi,” she remarked politely, bowing as she entered and shuffled toward him across the dark timber floor.

The roshi looked up and smiled.“Myoge,” he greeted her, as if mildly surprised to see her.“I had hoped I would see you soon.”

Myoge smiled uneasily.

He turned his focus back to his _ikebana_ arrangement for a moment, frowning as he nudged the stalk to get it to stand just so.  "If only this one would stand the way I wish it.”

“You could tie it,” she suggested.

“Tying is for quitters!” the roshi scolded her, but the reproach was gentle enough that she offered a chastened look and a grin.

He shifted the angle of the grasses until they supported the stalk of blossoms and they remained.Myoge watched him in silence for several minutes.“And so…” he said with satisfaction, pulling his hands away and inspecting his work “…man supports heaven when earth cannot.”He turned to her.“So, Myoge.You brought home a stray, I am told.”

She nodded.“No ordinary stray.”

“Yes,” he said, less cheerfully.“I am told this as well.It surprises me that you would bring Inouye Aguri into the zendo.” 

Myoge carefully considered her response.“I am only trying to become true to my dharma name,” she answered.“The name you gave me.”

“Yes… Myoge…” He mused on that for a moment.“The starflower, the healer of sadness and remover of pain.That was your aspirational name, because that was your greatest need when you came here.”

“And you told me that in learning to ease others’ pain and sadness, I would ease my own.”

He nodded.“Still… the wife of Yorihime Noboru… this samurai serves a wicked master indeed.”

Myoge nodded.“I know this all too well, Konjen Roshi.However …she says that she has betrayed him.”

The roshi thought about this.“And you believe her?”

Myoge shrugged.“She says she was in the woods to commit _jigai_.” 

The roshi chuckled.“So you prevented her.”

Myoge flushed.“I did not interrupt her!She was lying unconscious on the ground beside a stream when I found her.I brought her back and dressed her wound.” 

The roshi looked at her knowingly.“The Shinto,” he began slowly, “believed, in her younger days, that she was favored by their goddess, Amaterasu.Do you know Amaterasu?”

Myoge nodded.“I think so.The sun goddess?The one who banished her husband and created the rift between night and day?”

“Just so.Do you know why she banished him?”

She shook her head.

“Because he was wicked.He killed another goddess.”

Myoge frowned.She did not understand what the roshi’s point was.

“What was your purpose in bringing her here?” he asked, more directly.“You did not know when you found her that she would tell you this story of betraying Lord Noboru.” 

“She was wounded.I could not leave her to die.”

“Even knowing who she was.”

“ _Especially_ knowing who she was.”She gazed levelly at him now, finding her confidence in her choice.“Compassion for those who least deserve it but most need it is a virtue, is it not?”

The roshi smiled and folded his arms.“I am not telling you that it was the wrong decision.But, it was your decision, and thus, you are now responsible for her.So what do you intend?”

Myoge shifted and rubbed at the back of her neck.“She says she means to commit _jigai_.I imagine I will help her to heal enough to be able to hold a knife.”

The roshi seemed terribly amused now.“See that she causes no trouble while she is here.And apprise me of everything you learn.”

Myoge nodded.

The grasses in his ikebana arragement began to sag a little, and the stalk with the bright yellow-orange blossoms began to tilt too far down.Konjen Roshi sighed.“Grass,” he complained, “you are not doing a very good job of holding up heaven.” 

“You can always tie it,” Myoge said again, smirking.

“Quitter!” he snapped.Then he looked up at her.“Alright, Myoge.Go take care of your stray samurai.”

“Technically, she is _ronin_ ,” Myoge pointed out, knowing she was being irritating now and not quite caring.“If what she says is true, she is masterless now, isn’t that so?”

Konjen Roshi groaned.“Yes! Masterless.”He pulled the stalk out of the pot and contemplated a different placement altogether.He waved her away without looking up.“Go.See to this so-called ronin you have brought within our walls.”

Myoge walked past the other monastics who had been eavesdropping outside the door.They held their silence as she walked past but she knew as soon as she was out of earshot that they would be whispering again.

“Right action,” she reminded them tartly, “and right intent, brothers and sisters.” She walked away without looking back.

Myoge had heard stories of Noboru’s bands marauding through villages early in his rise to power, taking residence in peasant’s homes, burning them down if they had no food to offer. She had heard how they would often cut green rice plants to feed their horses, destroying the crops as they went. If decency resided in Aguri’s heart, it was not hard to imagine that she might have grown tired of carrying out his will and ended up breaking her vows.

But in truth, she did not even know whether her vows were really broken.It could, of course, all be a lie.


	7. The Choice to Forget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex's encounter with the Black Mercy goes a bit differently than we remember it.

_Earlier that evening…_

 

Alex had only two kinds of dreams lately.She had dreams of her own death, which were not always violent but always came with some bitter unfinished task.And, less frequently, but notable because she rarely had these sorts of dreams at all, she had dreams about sex.These were strange; they aroused her in her sleep, and were so vivid she could feel her lover’s skin and smell the scent of her lover’s breath, which smelled fresh and green, like pine, or sage.The kisses were sometimes rough, and sometimes achingly soft.Sometimes, she even climaxed in her dreams.But it was always accompanied by an edge of unease, of tension that prickled down her back.And it was always, always the same person.Even though she never saw them, she knew it was the same.It felt the same.Her nerves stood on end just the same, every time.

So she was not quite sure what she would find, inserting herself into Kara’s dream.She lay on the table next to Kara’s, connected to various monitors and wires and interfaces clipped to her fingers and taped to her temples and J’onn, Winn, James and Max Lord clustered around her.She heard J’onn saying, “If your readings get too sketchy, I’m pulling you out.”

“Yeah…”But then Max administered the shot and the lights blurred and faded.

She and Kara had always been close, she mused, but this was a new kind of closeness.To be inside someone’s mind and thoughts was daunting.

She found herself walking down a dark corridor, toward a distant point of light.It slowly grew larger with her steps.She could hear voices, echoing from far off.She recognized Kara’s first.“And now, it’s my turn!”There was a sound like dice being thrown, and then clattering across a table.

Then she heard –was it Astra or Alura?It didn’t quite sound like either of them.The voice sounded… warm.Affectionate.Playful.“An unlucky throw, niece.”

Astra, then.

“But I have a solution!” Kara answered.“Look, they’re both expressable as the sum of two cubes!”

Alex continued walking softly toward the light.The voices grew louder, less distant.The reverberation of the echoes was shortening, until it was nearly subsumed into the words.“Show me the math."

She heard Kara murmuring as she did the equations and then Alex heard,

“Very good, Kara!” Astra applauded her.“You are even better at this game than your mother.”

Then she heard Alura’s voice, from another part of Kara’s mind.“That is not very difficult.Mathetmatics was always your best discipline, not mine.”

She recognized this as Al-Kamash, a game that Kara had described to her but that Alex had never quite been able to play because her math, good as it was, was not at the level needed to play with the same facility as typical Krypton-schooled teenagers.Alex had nearly reached the doorway now, and she squinted to see the family seated around a low table in a round room, in which a rich, red light poured through the windows.It was a luxurious room, with thick couches and enormous windows and tall potted plants dotting the perimeter.She pressed her back to the wall of the corridor and craned her neck, trying to see more clearly.They didn’t seem to notice her presence as she lingered there. 

“Aunt Astra,” Kara asked as she placed the many-sided dice back into a cup and handed it to her, “how long do you think you’ll be home?”

“For a long while, my precious girl.”Astra shook the cup, and then stopped.“I have fought a good war, and ended a long conflict between worlds, but now, for a while at least, I am done.I told the council that they must not ask me for anything more while I spend time with my one and only niece.And my sister.”Alex saw the affection in her eyes when she looked at Kara, and then over at Alura.She still had a soldier’s bearing, but she had a relaxed warmth to her that made her noticeably more beautiful than the times Alex had seen her in real life. _No wonder Kara feels like she’s lost her,_ Alex thought. _She remembers someone capable of being loving and gentle, and she doesn’t see that in her anymore.She doesn’t see this person._

She edged through the doorway.Still no-one seemed to notice her presence.Astra threw the dice again, and Kara glanced up.Alex’s heart stopped.She seemed to look right at her, but then … through her.

Astra looked at the results of her throw.She considered for a moment.“Both divisible by pi with results stopping at the fifth decimal place.”

Kara clapped.“I didn’t know what you were going to do with that one!”

Then Astra looked up, tilted her head, and seemed to look directly at Alex.“Kara,” she said, in that sweet, gentle voice that was so different, “I think your little cousin is crying, would you like to go check on him and see if he needs to be fed?”

Kara nodded eagerly, and bounded off through a doorway at the other side of the room.Alura seemed to freeze in place.

Astra got up and walked to her, gazing at her for a moment.“You… are a threat.”It was not unkind, the way she said this. It was unnerving. 

Alex frowned.“What’s wrong with Alura?”

This Astra shrugged.“This part of Kara’s mind does not require anything from her right now.”

Alex stared at her.“How come Alura can’t see me and you can?”

She smiled, and this time there was a hint of malice to it.“Kara’s mind must be protected.When she was small, she saw me as her protector.So I have been given autonomy that the other projections have not.” 

Alex had to remind herself that this was not really Astra, but a construction from Kara’s memories of her.“So you’re running defense, then.”

Astra nodded.“Yes.You do not need to pull Kara from somewhere that she is finally happy.” Astra’s eyes became so gentle, then.“I was her protector, as you are now.Her happiness is as important to you as it ever was to me.I can feel that.You and I, we understand each other, do we not?”

Alex was not quite aware of herself trembling, but she felt shaken by the words. 

“There is a line,” Astra went on, “from a very ancient piece of Kryptonian poetry, a favorite of mine… I used to read it to Kara every time I got ready to go away on a campaign. _I carry a fire in me, like the burning heart of a star, and filled with Rao’s light, I defend your sleep_.”

This line felt familiar, but Alex couldn’t quite place it.Alex took a breath to speak, but Astra went on. “Do you really believe you can kill me?”

Alex shook her head. “Your death is not my decision to make.”

This time, it was still Astra’s voice, but it was now the Black Mercy speaking directly to her.“I can sense in you the desire to protect her, and it is as fierce as a burning star.”Astra’s projection drew closer to her.“But I sense other desires, too.”Her fingers came up and brushed Alex’s cheek.This time, Alex did not jerk her head away.She closed her eyes for a moment and, even knowing it wasn’t real, dwelled in the unearthed memory of being touched by Astra.“Why must you take Kara from this world that she has made for herself?You can stay.You and I can come to know each other more.” 

Astra took her hand. Alex stood still for a moment, staring at the way their fingers interlaced. The Black Mercy saw into parts of her mind that she had not examined and did not want to. 

“I know your dreams,” it whispered to her, in Astra’s voice.

She had a flash of one of her recent dreams, of moving against that mysterious lover’s body and for a moment, that lover’s face was Astra’s. _No, that can’t be right._

The world of the dream is airless, and Alex could not cling to the lifeline of her breath.The panic and anger that rose in her broke free to the surface.She shoved past Astra and into the brightly lit room, charging through to the other side where Kara was just re-entering the room, holding the baby Kal-El. 

“He’s fine,” his sister was saying, “I think he just needed to be held…”

Alex grabbed Kara’s shoulders.“Kara!Kara, it’s me!”

Kara blinked, seeming to register her presence for the first time.“I’m sorry … have we met?Mom, who is this?”

Alura became animated again.She sat up in her seat on the large, rounded couch.“I do not know, but she is not welcome.I will call for guards to remove her.”

There would not be much time.“Kara!” Alex pleaded.“Please, Kara.Remember me.I’m your sister!”She gestured around.“None of this is real!Krypton is gone, your family is gone!” 

“That is not necessary, sister,” Astra said calmly, “I will remove her myself.”Astra came up behind her and pinned her arms behind her back. 

Alex struggled against her grip and continued undeterred, clinging to the confusion in Kara’s face, hoping that maybe it was a handhold.“Kara!I know this is the world you wish you had, and I’m sorry that you can’t have this back… but it’s better to live in reality!It’s like I say, it’s like Buddha says, don’t dwell in the past, don’t dream of the future, concentrate your mind on the present moment.Live in the moment… the one where you have a family and friends who love you!”

Astra’s grip was strong, but it was not superhuman.Alex tore herself away and ran to Kara, drawing her close. 

“You know me,” she insisted, “I know you do.I can see it in your face.You see me, you recognize me.You love me.And I love you.I always, always have your back.I am risking my own life and my own mind to come here and get you out of this parasitic fantasy, Kara _please_ …”

Astra caught hold of her again and Alex swung an elbow back against her. 

Kara’s face clouded.She looked angry and sad.“I … I know you…”She said slowly.“Astra, stop!Stop, let go of her!”

Astra persisted.“I cannot do that, Kara.” 

“I am your sister!” Alex said. 

The recognition dawned in Kara’s eyes.“I came to you when I was twelve.”

“Yes!” Alex was ecstatic with relief.It was working.“You came into my home and I helped take care of you.I did my best to keep you out of trouble and I took you to your OT appointments so you could learn how to live on Earth with your new senses!Remember, please!” 

“That is enough,” Astra said firmly, and hooked her arms around Alex’s waist and began to drag her toward the dark opening in the wall from which she had emerged.She was so strong, Alex thought with dismay.

“My… new senses…” Kara was fumbling for a memory now.

“Your powers!” Alex cried.“You’re a hero!You save people!You’re a good warrior, like Astra was, like I try to be!”

Kara’s eyes welled up suddenly, and she looked around.The room began to rumble.“This… this isn’t right…”Tears streamed down her face.“This… I watched all of this go up in flames…”

Alex tried to dig her heels in and keep Astra from dragging her out.Somehow she knew that if she was ejected into that hallway, she would not be able to get back in.“Yes!But you have so many people on Earth who love you.Kal-El, Eliza, Winn, James… me.Even …. Even Astra…” 

Astra paused for a moment.

Kara was weeping now, but her gaze was clear.“Alex.”

Alex nodded, laughing with relief, sobbing with relief.“Yes! Please, you’ve got to reject all this, Kara.The world needs you.I need you.Real, living people who love you… _need_ you right now.This might be a happy memory, but you know it’s not real!”

Kara looked at Kal-El in her arms, then at her mother’s frightened face, and then at Alex and Astra.“I’m sorry,” she said to them.“I don’t belong here.” 

Then everything went dark as if the plug had been pulled on reality.

 

*****

 

When her eyes opened, Alex felt displaced and anxious, as if her soul didn’t quite sit in her body the right way.The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed, seeming louder than normal.J’onn was looking down at her, relieved.“You alright, Agent?”

She nodded wordlessly.“And Kara?”

J’onn nodded over to where her sister lay.The Black Mercy plant had shriveled off of her and lay dead in a gray pile on the floor.She was sitting up, blinking into the light, tears running down her face. 

Alex rolled off of the gurney and onto her feet, staggered a little as her body realized it wasn’t quite ready to be bearing her weight, and then came and wrapped her arms around her sister.Kara couldn’t do anything but cling to her and cry for several long minutes before she spoke.“I had them again… and it felt so real… and then I lost them again…”

Alex could only hold her and try to soothe her in the aftershock of this very rude awakening.“Yeah,” she murmured softly, her voice catching in her throat.“It all feels pretty real when you’re in there.I know.”

Kara shook with sobs for several moments more.Then it occurred to her to ask, “Who did this to me?”

“It …was Non,” Alex said.

She felt Kara stiffen, and then pulled back from her.The grief was still there, but it was far overshadowed by a rage that Alex had rarely seen in her sister.She seemed to be vibrating with her anger, sparks of it swirling behind her eyes.She looked at Alex with burning wrath illuminating her entire being.Her voice was ragged and full of thunder.“WHERE IS HE?WHERE’S NON?”

J’onn came closer to them both.“We don’t know where he is,” he said, “but we know where he’s going to be.He’s got a plan, and we’re going to stop him. Agent Vasquez has put the pieces together while you’ve been working this problem, and unfortunately, we’re shorter on time than we thought. We’re moving out, ASAP.”

“I’m in,” Kara said without hesitation.

J’onn looked at her with concern.“Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

“I have never been more ready for anything in my life,” Kara responded fiercely.She got up and stormed from the room, her cape trailing behind her.

J’onn looked at Alex.“What about you, Alex?” he asked softly.

“I feel fine, sir,” she said dismissively.“I can’t let you guys have all the fun.”

“That’s not what I mean.” 

Alex shifted uncomfortably.“I’m fine, J’onn,” she promised.“I’m a soldier.”

The closer this all came to violence, the more Alex felt in her stomach that it wasn’t the right way. She questioned her choice to exchange Astra instead of talking to her more and truly making an asset of her.And even more, she questioned her choice to forget the things she had forgotten. 

She couldn’t help feeling the movement of the dharma in Astra coming to her at this point, in this time and place.If only she could tell why.


	8. Bringing Home a Saxon Maiden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Danes and Saxons both regroup in the wake of their earlier clash.

“Not so tight, Brida,” Ase hissed.

“Sorry.” Brida loosened the bandage around Ase’s wounded shoulder and then reapplied it, tight, but not strangling the flow of her blood as before.It was a shallow cut, but nevertheless smarted, and needed to be seen to.

Bjorn looked on, frowning.“So? You have set foot on Suth-Saexe and surpassed Njord.Are we done now?”

Ase shook her head.“Of course not.We must go back with our crew and take that which is of value and worth taking.”

Ingrid snorted.She sat at the prow of the ship, just behind Ase, unwrapping a slice of dried, salted meat.Fighting made her hungry.“You know, Ase,” she remarked slowly as she gnawed away on it, challenge in her tone, “I couldn’t help noticing when we were there that the village seems to have no church.”

Ase considered her comment as she tugged her leather jerkin back into place.“I noticed it also.”

“Then why are we going back?” Ingrid demanded.“If there’s no church there’s almost never any gold.”

But Ase was fascinated.The Frankish towns they had raided had not held any real sport.The crew of the Nagelfar rolled through them, inexorable and generally unchallenged.But the Saxon man, he’d given her a little trouble.The wound in her shoulder stung, but it came with something else; a tingling thrill at the idea that there might be a good fight up there, for once. 

And, she had questions.The two girls were of interest.The younger was clearly born a Dane, but also had clearly lived amongst Saxons for some time.It was surely where her sympathies lay.And the older one?Ase was obsessed with the way the girl had immediately seized command before her father’s body had even struck the earth, the way she charged, her fearless, dark eyes.The way she refused to be defeated or cowed.Ase thought of the moment when the girl attacked her with a shield because the sword had been knocked from her hands.What she might have lacked in brute strength or skill, she made up tenfold with cleverness and a dauntless spirit.It was the most beautiful sight Ase had seen in some time.

And for the first time in more years than she wanted to count, Ase felt a shiver go through her.Her body decided in that instant that it wanted the girl, and urgently.She turned this feeling over for a long moment while Ingrid and Bjorn stared at her expectantly.“Well,” she said finally, “we have to bring something back, so we can prove we were here,” she began.She drummed her fingers absently on her thigh. 

“You have something in mind?” Bjorn prompted.

Ase nodded.“Slaves,” she decided.“We bring back slaves.”

Ingrid groaned.“But they are trouble to transport,” she complained.“And we have to feed them at least a little if they are to be worth anything.”

“But worth good coin if they are strong and healthy,” Ase replied in a tone that said she considered the matter closed.“We only need a few.A couple of strapping Saxon men.And I want the chieftain’s daughter and her sister as well.”

Bjorn smirked. 

Ingrid snorted.“The girls?” she demanded. “What for?”

“The younger one is a Dane.She belongs with us.”

Ingrid grunted.

“And the older one?” Bjorn prompted.

Ase shrugged dismissively.“She interests me.”She caught Ingrid’s incredulous glance and added,“And she looks like she can cook better than you.”

Hilde and Brida laughed.Bjorn slapped Ase on the back.“Not only setting foot in Suth-Saexe but bringing home a Saxon maiden,” he chuckled.“Enough, already, Ase.You’re better than Njord, everyone knows.” 

Ase smiled at him.But she was already growing excited at the prospect of returning to the village and taking that chieftain’s daughter as a prize.

 

 

****

 

Ardith and Caja stood together, watching the men of the village dragging the sharpened branches to the place where the Roman road entered the village, and then placing them in the ground, facing outward.It would not deter the Danes forever, but it would slow them.To get into the village, they would be forced to go around the high wall made from stones as big as a man’s head, and through the swamps.

Four other men were dragging branches together in the middle of the small settlement to build a pyre for Jokum’s body.Ardith wanted it burned now, so that if she and the others of Haedwalle did not survive the Danes’ return, it would not be defiled. 

“I grieve with you,” Caja said to her after a quiet in which they watched the others hustling about, doing as Ardith had told them.

“I know.Thank you.” She turned to Caja and took her hand.“I want you to go on foot to the reeve’s, as fast as you can, and–”

“But I want to fight!” Caja protested.

Ardith shook her head.“What kind of sister would I be to you if I let you stay?”

“The kind that lets her sister defend her home just like anyone else would want to!”

Ardith sighed.“Listen to me, Caja.The woman, Ase, she heard you speak.She knows you are a Dane.She _will_ try to take you, I know it.” 

“Let her try!” Caja answered hotly. 

Ardith smiled gently.She remembered being that way too.She sighed.“Someone needs to go and ride to Cartimandua and inform her of what is happening here.She might send aid.It is an important job, Caja, and I need you to do it.” 

Caja frowned.“Then let me take Leofric.”

Ardith shook her head.“I am going to need him.Run to the reeve’s and see if he won’t let you use his mare.”Ardith glanced around.“Wyne,” she called, “tell Claennis and the other women to gather glass jars and place them in the wheelbarrow! Jetta must have some in his workshop at the very least!”

He nodded and jogged over to the rope-maker’s wife to talk to her.

“This is not because you do not trust me, is it?” Caja asked.

Ardith stared at her.“No! Why would you say such a thing?”

“Because. They are Danes.I am a Dane.Your father killed my father.Maybe you think I have been harboring a chance for revenge.”

Ardith nodded, wondering if Caja had always worried about the family’s trust.“Your father was reckless to take a nine year old girl on a raid with him, even if you were told to stay in the boat.When Jokum cut him down, he felt you became his responsibility.And you became mine as well.” 

Caja nodded. “You were so angry,” she recalled, smiling fondly, if a little sadly.“You did not want to put me on Leofric’s back and take me away from the battle.You wanted to stay and fight.”

“And now you still want to stay and fight,” Ardith sighed.“But the most important thing you can do now is go to Cartimandua.We need help.Jetta says a ship the size of the one he saw could easily be carrying twice our number.”

Caja looked startled. “What will you do?”

“I will say the prayers, and burn my father’s body.And then I will make him proud.”

 

***

 

The mists grew thicker as evening rolled in.The townsfolk had completed the barricade and were gathering the glass jars, as Ardith had asked them to do.Meanwhile, she approached Wyne and pulled him aside.“That drum of yours,” she said urgently.“How far will the flame shoot if you close the bellows completely?”

Wyne looked surprised.“The furnace?I don’t know, I’ve not tested it for that.”

Ardith grew impatient.“Best guess, then?”

Wyne shrugged.“Two rod or a little more, I should think.” 

Thirty feet.It might do.“And if you closed the bellows completely, how many times do you reckon you could use it before you ran out of the swamp stuff in the drum?”

Wyne thought.“I think three or four. Why?”

“And how long does it take turn the crank on the pulley to get the rock up to the top?”

“I don’t know, a few moments.Ardith, why–?”

She plowed on.“I have an idea.Now, here is what I want you to do.Tell Edburga to take as many men as he needs and pull some of the great, round stones from the end of the Roman wall on the other side of the village, where it begins to crumble.”

“Take _down_ the stones?”he repeated in disbelief.

“Yes.”She glanced past him at the pyre, which was completed.

“How… er, how many?”

“As many as they can manage.Cynric has another wheelbarrow, they are to load as many as they can into it and wait for my instruction.”

Wyne hesitated for only half a beat, then jogged to Edburga and told him what Ardith had instructed.As he did so, she found Jetta and another man and had them move Jokum’s body to the pyre.Claennis came forward with the wheelbarrow of glass jars.There were not as many as Ardith had hoped, but some was better than none. 

“Have you the pot for the oil?”

Claennis nodded. 

Ardith looked at the darkening sky.Those who were not attending to the tasks she had set them to began gathering.She lit the fire, and the assembled stood quiet for several minutes as it slowly worked its way up the pile of twigs and branches, until eventually, it began to consume his body.Finally, Ardith spoke.

“Woden, Freya, and any gods who are listening, my father was a great man, a brave man, and deserves to live forever in your halls, among the other favored warriors of all history.You have seen his deeds, and know him to be worthy.Let him come to you, and let him eat, and drink, and fight, and rejoice with those you have seen fit to favor.Tonight, we face the warriors who felled him; we ask that you bless us with victory, and that if you do not, that you find us worthy to sit beside him when we come to your halls ourselves.”

As if in answer, the flames roared higher.

She turned from the fire, to face the people.She was framed in burning gold and the shadow fell long and black on the ground before her.In the intervening time, she had changed into breeches and she wore her father’s mail coat and carried Moonflame in a sheath at her waist.She drew it, so that it glinted with the fire’s light. “We are simple people, but what man is not a warrior when it comes to defending his own home?” There was a murmuring of agreement. “Jetta has seen their ship and says that a ship that size could be carrying as many as eighty Danes.They outnumber us.And they are more skilled.So we must be clever.We must use every advantage.We must be fearless.”There was a silence.“You followed my father when they came before, and we beat them back.But they were not so many as they are now.Will you follow me?” A murmur of assent came.

“I will follow you to my death if necessary!” Jetta declared.

She smiled at him.“The hope, Jetta, is that none of us has to die.”She nodded at Claennis, who took a pot of oil and suspended it over a low-lying part of the burning pyre.“Claennis now heats oil, and that oil will aid us in our fight.She heats it over the fires of Jokum’s funeral pyre, so even in death, Jokum will still be killing Danes!”

There was a more vigorous expression of excitement as she said this.“But what are we meant to do with it?” someone called from the crowd.

“And what about the stones?” Edburga wanted to know.

She put a hand up.“I will explain all.But we need to move quickly.There is not very much time.”


	9. Stubborn Ronin, Arrogant Nun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aguri mends, and jigai becomes a discussion again.

Aguri woke, and slept, and woke again.In between her spells of waking, she dreamt strange, murky things;sometimes of making love to a lover she could not see, only feel and taste, or the sense of the world rising and falling under her feet as if she were at sea, the creaking of wood, and of course, often, her own death. That was almost comforting, owing to its familiarity.She found Myoge in her room most times, watching her sleep, considering her. 

Finally, she woke, and stayed awake.Myoge tilted her head and smiled faintly.“She wakes.”

Aguri nodded.Her stomach made a plaintive growl.“Yes.And she is hungry.”

“Good.I have some clear soup for you.” 

Aguri frowned.“Nothing more than that?”

Myoge clucked her tongue at Aguri’s impatience.“You are very demanding,” she scolded, but in a tone that meant gentleness and good humor.“You are too accustomed to telling people what to do and having them do as you command.” 

“I am a general,” Aguri responded. 

Myoge crouched down and slid an arm behind Aguri’s back, drawing her to sit up, and rearranged the cushions and the bedroll to support her.“You _were_ a general,” Myoge reminded her.

Aguri fell silent.She glanced down at her shoulder, which had a fresh bandage on it.The smell of herbs drifted up from it.“How long have I been sleeping?”

“You have been drifting between sleep and waking for several days.I have been managing to get a little soup into you.I can’t have you die in my care, what would the other monks say?”

Aguri gave her a sour look.“You Buddhists think you’re funny,” she grumbled.But she took the small bowl of soup from Myoge with her left hand, the side that was undamaged, and raised it to her lips. 

“Not all of us.Mostly just me.”Myoge sat cross-legged on the floor beside Aguri while she drank the soup. “And the roshi is very funny, sometimes.When he wants to be.”

The broth was warm and salty and little pieces of mushroom floated in it.Aguri drank it down as quickly as she could at this temperature.It was not enough.She wanted more to eat.Her stomach gave another disconsolate growl.“Why are you attending to me so closely?”

“Well,” Myoge explained, sighing, “the roshi has decided that I am responsible for you, since I am the one who brought you here.” 

“And you do not trust me.”

Myoge shrugged.“I have not decided if I trust you or not.But in the meantime, your well-being is my task as well.”She peered curiously at her for a few moments.“It seemed that you dreamt a great deal while you slept.What were your dreams?”

Aguri drained the last few drops in her bowl before speaking.“I dreamt of my own death, many times.”She omitted the rest.It was not the nun’s business.

“As a _samurai_ does,” Myoge responded.

Aguri raised an eyebrow. 

“Were they violent?”

Aguri blew a stray hair from her eyes.“Most of them, yes.But not all.”

“Did you dream of your _jigai_?”

Aguri considered this.She had not.“I do not remember.” 

“You would remember, I think. So, you did not.”

While male samurai committed _seppukku_ after dishonoring themselves, female samurai committed _jigai_ ; instead of disemboweling themselves with their swords, they would slit their own throats with a knife.The reason for this was reverence for the womb, the place from which life sprang.As no life had ever sprung from hers, the reverence was merely for its symbolic significance. Her wounds from The Siege of Nagashima saw to that.“What does that matter?”

Myoge shrugged.“Well, I am curious to know whether you are still set upon this idea of _jigai_.After all, you are holding your own bowl.It would not be so much work for you to hold a knife now and…”She left the rest unsaid, giving her a questioning look.

Another long strand of hair fell into Aguri’s eyes.She blew upwards with annoyance.Stubbornly, it still lay in her face.Myoge leaned forward and tucked it behind her ear.“I could have done that,” Aguri said churlishly.

“Your good hand is holding the bowl.”Myoge’s tone was gentle, placating, a little amused.

Aguri frowned.“Why are you so anxious for me to commit _jigai_ anyway?”

“I’m not.You were the one so angry with me for having brought you back here and mended you.I’m only trying to help.”Myoge squinted at her a moment.“Why did you betray your lord?”

“I told you.Ugomori did no wrong.”

“But Noboru was your master.And you have done many other wicked things in his name.You were sworn to him.A samurai’s honor is bound entirely to her adherence to her oaths.Why was this one different?” 

Aguri sighed.“Why must you know this?”

“Because. You are my responsibility.”They exchanged a long look in silence, and then Myoge added, “And besides, I have not decided if I trust you or not. I want to know more about what happened.”

“When I was a very young _samurai_ , still learning the art, I spent much time in the home of Ugomori and his family.They were kind to me.My own family did not accept me, not even my twin sister. So I took meals with Ugomori and spent many festivals with him and his family.I was foolish then, and idealistic, and I swore to him that I would always protect him and his family, even when I was a great _samurai_.” 

“So you became a great _samurai_ , and your oath to him, although sworn when you were –how young did you say?”

“Fourteen.”

“Fourteen,” Myoge mused.“Your oath to him came into conflict with your lord’s orders, and that was why you defied him.”

They stared at one another for a few moments more.“Are you satisfied?” Aguri finally demanded.

“For now,” Myoge answered, departing with a faint smile.

 

*******

 

Myoge was not satisfied.

Many jobs were required to maintain the _zendo_ and keep the grounds in excellent condition. Myoge and Wataru had spent the morning after _zazen_ meditation leading groups of novices in cleaning the long, wide hallways that wrapped around the outsides of the dormitories. It was a task that involved everyone standing side by side, hunched over, cloths in hand, and running down the corridor more or less in unison. They were tired now, and walking slowly from the second tier of the property down to the first, where the _hattō_ resided, the hall where the roshi gave lectures. The buildings, huddled close together, cast shadows with their green-tiled rooftops on the stone walkways.

“Does she sleep now?” Wataru asked.

Myoge nodded.“But she will be sleeping less and less.I plan to get her up and have her walk to take a meal with us in the common room tonight.”

Wataru was skeptical.“I do not think you should have brought her here.”

“I know,” Myoge responded archly.“No-one does.”

They began descending the grey stone steps.

“Is it true that she has betrayed Lord Noboru?”

Myoge smirked.“The walls are thin here.”

“Well, the doors _are_ made of paper.”

“Indeed they are.”And then Myoge fell sullen and distant, and scratched her head absently as they walked around the lecture hall, toward the gardens on the other side of it.

Wataru felt the drumming of Myoge’s thoughts in her hesitation.“What troubles you?”

Myoge shook her head.“Hard to explain.She says she betrayed him because an oath she made to a man when she was barely more than a child superseded the oaths she swore to her lord and husband.”

Wataru nodded.“So you wonder if she values her own vows?”

Myoge paused and gave a little cursory, habitual bow to the stone Buddhas in front of the _hattō_. She kept walking. “No, not that.She says she intends _jigai_ when she is strong enough.She feels that she has indeed dishonored herself.I only wonder if…”Myoge trailed off.She had difficulty forming the thought.“…if she only _thinks_ her childhood oath is the reason she betrayed her husband.”

Wataru did not understand.He gazed out at the neighboring mountain peaks as they walked.“You think there is another reason?”

Myoge sighed.“It’s not quite coming together in my mind. A childhood oath to a farmer? I think she was tired of serving a wicked lord long before she betrayed Noboru, and this conflicting oath finally gave her a good reason to do what she had been wanting to do for some time.”

Wataru frowned.“That is a great leap of faith, Myoge.”

“I know.”

“Have you shared this thought with Konjen Roshi?”

Myoge hesitated again.“No.It is … a very new thought.”

The gardens of Deepest Mountain Zendo were crisply maintained.The beds of gravel had just been raked into perfect lines, broken in places by other shapes, hypnotic in their evenness.Suzue took care of the raking on most days, and her hands were by far the steadiest Myoge had ever seen.She and Wataru walked carefully around the gravel beds, so as not to disturb Suzue’s work.They each carried shears to trim the crouching shrubberies on the far side, the ones that huddled against the wall of the temple.Wataru knelt down and began delicately clipping at the bright green branches. 

“I can’t help feeling the movement of dharma in my finding her,” Myoge confessed.She knelt down beside Wataru and began to clip away at another shrub. 

He smiled.“You often go places I am not quite able to follow,” he told her.He paused, breathing in the scent of the cut greenery before continuing.“But, if she proves to be untrustworthy, I am here to fight beside you.”Wataru was a few years older than Myoge, and though never officially her _senpai_ , he had always been supportive and ready with good advice. He’d come here a few years before she had, and unlike many who lived here, he had not been a warrior before he came. He’d been training in medicine. His perspective, then, was often different from those others around the _zendo_ , including the roshi himself.

“I can handle one wounded _ronin_.”

“She is not just any _ronin_ ,” Wataru reminded her.

And so, Myoge fell sullen and quiet again.She wondered at the disgraced general’s reputation, if she were really as great a warrior as she was said to have been.Thinking of the pale, recalcitrant, still-mending woman in the bed, it was hard to imagine her as Amaterasu’s Hand, righteous, wreathed in sunlight that shone on the brilliant blue and red embroidery of her black kimono, graceful and fearsome with sword and naginata alike. 

She lost herself in her task, considering the bend of each tender branch between her fingers, the tilt of the tiny leaves, quietly judging where to clip, listening to the sound of the shears biting through the shoots and stalks, smelling the scent of cut greenery, fresh and sharp. She pushed aside the discomfort she had felt since first discovering Aguri Inouye asleep beside the stream, and found herself in the ease of existence, of presence of mind.She found Zen. 

It would not last.

 

 

****

 

“I won’t wear it,” Aguri said flatly.She stared with contempt at the bundle of white cloth in Myoge’s hands.

Myoge folded her arms.“Well, I can’t bring you to eat in the common room like that.”She gestured at Aguri’s underwear.

Aguri had taken several painful minutes to sit up, and Myoge helped her to walk a few wobbly circuits around the room.She was still barefoot, and in her undergarments only.Her shoulder still ached.And Myoge was trying to make her put on the robes like the other monastics wore. Not saffron ones, like hers, but white, like the postulants who had not yet been ordained.“Then give me back my kimono.”

Myoge shook her head.“You would clear the room, marching around in that.”

“To hear you tell it, everyone already knows I’m here.”

“I am not taking you to eat amongst monks and nuns dressed like a murderer of peasants.”

Aguri huffed.“Then I will eat here.”

Myoge snorted.“Stubborn _ronin_.”

Aguri bristled. _Ronin?_ She was right, but still.The wound to her pride was too great to tolerate being addressed this way. “Arrogant nun.”

Myoge laughed.“Dharma has decided that you, Inouye Aguri, are my test.Why are you even asking for food?You are strong enough to commit _jigai_ by now!”

Aguri paused, her cheeks flushing.“I can barely stand,” she protested.

“You only have to kneel.” 

Aguri felt her hackles raise.She was still sore, and could feel the throbbing in her right shoulder where the wound went through, even though the flesh had begun to mend and become taut.“Fine.Get me a knife and I will do it right here.”She wasn’t even sure why she was angry.This nun was so impertinent.But she was right.Wasn’t she?

“Right here?And leave me to clean up your blood?No.We will go to the stream that trickles down from farther up the mountain.It passes through the walls of the Zendo.No mess.” 

“Fine.”

Myoge eyed her a moment.“But you still have to wear the robe.”

“Fine!” Aguri snapped.With some prideful struggle, followed by some assistance from Myoge, she donned the white robe.“I look ridiculous in this,” she complained, not needing to see herself to know it was true.

“Less so than in your undergarments,” Myoge responded dryly. 

“I don’t like you,” Aguri grumbled as she followed Myoge out into the open, airy corridor, shuffling along behind her on unsteady legs.

Myoge did not seem bothered by this.“That’s alright.I don’t like you either.”She stopped walking and turned to her, smiling.“But I nevertheless embrace you, as part of the world and all that dwells within it.” 

“Zen nonsense,” Aguri grunted.

“Zen nonsense,” Myoge agreed cheerfully.

They walked to the stream.


	10. The Supreme Art of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Astra calls the Fort Rozz troops to arms

_Earlier that evening..._

 

Astra strode through the halls of the underground bunker that she and her crew had fashioned from the wreckage of Fort Rozz, the floating prison where she was supposed to have ended her days.The lights were dim, the air hummed with activity, and everywhere she went, she received deferential salutes from those who passed, quiet acknowledgements of, “General.”She barely nodded in their direction.The weight of a book, “The Art of War,” rested in an inner pocket of the human-style jacket she had worn for her excursion.

The doors to the war room slid open.Non was there, standing arch-backed and prideful, parceling out orders to their lieutenants.They gave her a nod and scampered away.

She still saw what she had decided to love in him, all those years ago, when their home world still hung like a jewel in space.His commitment to the cause, and to her.He was from a far lesser house than hers, and her family had never fully approved of him, but she was an unplanned twin, an extra, a remainder; her options were limited.And he was a “faith birth.”They were both accidents, of a kind.It bonded them well enough.And they both bristled with a hunger to prove themselves worthy of… she abandoned the thought before she went too far with it.They had chosen each other.They were bound.That was all.

“Where have you been, wife?” he inquired once the room had cleared.There was danger in his tone.

She didn’t fear him.“Must I always report my whereabouts to my _lieutenant_?” she demanded.

He stepped closer to her.“I just wonder if your heart is still in this war.You know, we saw the humans attempting to trace our signal earlier today.Were you aware of this?” he asked, rather pointedly. 

He would be enraged if she told him where she had been.As his general, she thought, she was within her rights to simply tell him she had overridden his insubordinate plan.So why didn’t she?It was a question she would have to answer for herself later.She bristled with righteous indignation.She had momentarily forgotten that she had been seething with anger toward him, but she remembered it now.“How dare you question my commitment?Once Myriad is complete, humanity will be brought to its knees and this planet will be saved.I will not stand by and watch another world succumb to the foolishness of its inhabitants.”

He nodded, seeming satisfied with her display of passion.He took her hand.“You are my general, and my wife, and I have given you everything I have to give.I am the Nightwing to your Flamebird, my love.I only want to be sure that you still intend to burn the world down.” 

She gave him a tight smile.He often called her this, after the figure from the murky depths of Kryptonian myth. The tale of Flamebird and Nightwing occupied a place in Krypton’s history that predated even the Raoite liturgy, in the days when Rao was one of many deities; the tale was one of renewal, of Flamebird, the being created by Rao to destroy the world once it became too corrupt, so that Vocc the Builder could rebuild it again and again. And in each cycle, Flamebird fell in love with Nightwing, who restrained her flames until the time was right.It was a tale that honored the flawed nature of Krypton’s people prior to their worship of Rao; when Rao’s divinity came to them, so had flawlessly engineered perfection.Well, nearly flawless.Sometimes, there were still remainders.There were things that had to be taken on faith.

And sometimes, the world still had to burn down.

She squeezed his hand.“I must spend some time in thought.”

He nodded slowly.“In prayer?”

“Just so.”

He withdrew, and gave her a deferential nod.“Do as you see fit.”He walked toward the door, and then stopped and turned back.“If you would not mind though, I would request that you wash up before evening meal.You have the stink of humans on you.” 

She ignored the thinly veiled accusation in his voice.

 

 

******

 

 

She sat in the low light for a while, cross-legged, as she had seen the human do.The posture felt natural to her back, which always tended to ramrod straight.She closed her eyes, and probed into the dark of her mind.

Non held to the worship of Rao, and Astra said she did also, but in truth, she had felt abandoned by her god from the day her sister had sentenced her to prison.She suspected that Non held to his Raoite ways out of habit more than anything else.She, on the other hand, had found this other place in her mind to retreat to during times that were traditionally supposed to be for prayer. _How could Rao hear me all the way out here anyway?_ she thought sardonically. _27.1 light-years is a long way, even for a god._

Her rational mind struggled to make sense of things she had been feeling of late.She had felt compelled to help the human, Alexandra Danvers, rescue Kara from the grip of the Black Mercy.She had done this knowing that it might mean her end.But there was no honor in consigning her only living blood relative, the last of her noble house, to a lifetime trapped in the grip of a telepathic parasite. _And what good am I,_ she wondered, _if I fight without honor?_

Non had commented that he smelled the humans on her.It was so.He smelled one human in particular.The one who called Kara sister, the one who fascinated her.The brave one.He smelled her because Astra had been with her, attempting to help her unravel his plans.Astra breathed in, and took in the scent of Alexandra Danvers that clung to her clothing; it was a mixture of so many things.The perfumed sticks she burned in her apartment, the fibers of her clothing, the faint green-plant smells of the things she used to clean her body, the spices of the foods she ate that lingered in the air of her home, and then also just the scent of her body itself; the human sweat and human breath and human sex that was so powerful to Astra every time they had encountered each other.She had also smelled like the sea this time.Astra found she had no particular desire to wash it off.

But she would, and then after that she would eat tasteless Fort Rozz rations with Non and her crew.She would not think about the smells of food in Alexandra Danvers’ apartment.

The earth was a jewel.Blue, wreathed in mists, not unlike what Krypton had been.Its oceans were wide, its balances, delicate. It needed to be saved, because Krypton could not be.

Her mind, anxious and ill at ease, did what it did in these moments.She contemplated the hydrogen atom. Its factual predictability was calming, the linearity of its traits like a well worn prayer, or a… what did the human call it?A mantra. The humans’ model was lacking in some respects, but it had an elegance to it.It was not unlike humans themselves.

_The most abundant isotope, hydrogen-1, protium, or light hydrogen, contains no neutrons and is simply a proton and an electron. Protium is stable and makes up 99.985% of naturally occurring hydrogen atoms._

She thought of each time she had encountered Kara since she had arrived here.The fierceness of the fight in her.The love she clearly had for these humans. In her limited meetings with Alexandra Danvers, she had come to understand why.There was more bravery and goodness in them than she had initially assumed, even with their limitations and flaws.

_Deuterium contains one neutron and one proton. Deuterium is stable and makes up 0.0156% of naturally occurring hydrogen and is used in industrial Nuclear Magnetic Resonance._

She had seen the broadcasts and saw many occasions on which her niece could have lain down, could have given up, and did not.She knew that this time would be no different. All Alex had needed was the key, and Astra had given her that.Astra knew, intuitively, that Alex would not allow Kara to languish in her hallucinations, and that Kara would come out of them angry and in pain and ready to lay her out.

_Tritium contains two neutrons and one proton and is not stable, decaying with a half-life of 12.32 years. Because of the short half life, tritium does not exist in nature except in trace amounts._

No, there was no doubt.In preserving her honor, she had signed her own death warrant. Kara was protecting the Earth now, and she would do it in her own way.Myriad would fail. Unless…

_Higher isotopes of hydrogen are only created in artificial accelerators and reactors and have half lives around the order of 10−22 seconds._

The constancy of the hydrogen atom, the building block of life, gave her mind a kind of structure, a kind of quiet.In that quiet, she came to the conclusion that she had left herself no options. She had set a clock running the moment she had left Alexandra Danvers’s apartment. Myriad now had to be implemented before Kara was awakened from her Black Mercy-induced slumber, or it would not happen at all. 

Astra refused to consider the possibility that she no longer wanted it to happen.

She opened “The Art of War.”

 

 

****

 

She washed, as Non had requested.She missed the scent of the human on her when she was dressed again in fresh black clothing.She would not contemplate the reason for the ache in her gut. 

She strode to the mess and sat across from Non. He was handsome.She wondered idly what their children would have looked like, had they had them.But of course, that was impossible now.Fort Rozz had seen to it that none of their prisoners would be able to reproduce again.

He looked at her conspicuous lack of food tray as he worked through his rations.“Not hungry?”

She shook her head.“No. I am not.” 

He chewed in silence for a moment, waiting for her to speak.

“Is the program viable?” she asked after a long pause.

He nodded.“I believe so.”

“You believe? Is it, or not?”

“It is, General.”He bristled at the sharp urgency in her tone.

“Then why are we languishing here over dinner when there is an attack to be mounted?” she demanded.

He seemed thrown off his stride by her insistence.He paused, and then responded with perfect calm.“I only await your command.”

She looked disdainfully at his food.“Finish your meal, and then call to arms.I discovered things during my reconnaissance that, upon consideration, lead me to believe that the humans are at least somewhat aware of our plans. As we cannot abandon those plans, we must move the timetable up.It is the only hope of surprising them.”

He wiped his mouth slowly, carefully.He was clearly suspicious of her sudden urgency.“What have you done?”

“First you question my commitment.Now you question me for wishing too ardently to proceed with the mission. Make up your mind,” she snapped.

They stared one another down for a moment.“As you wish.”

“And,” she added, getting up, “belay the order to call to arms. I will do that myself.”

 

 

******

 

Astra sat in the war room, and got on the speakers which piped her voice into every room of her ramshackle high-tech fortress. 

“The humans have a scholar who says that the supreme art of war,” she began, “is to subdue the enemy without fighting.Our intent tonight is to do precisely that.Myriad is the ultimate expression of this ideal; we take control.The humans simply submit.Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.It is a truth we have always known.Every one of you came to follow me not because I beat you into submission, but only because you knew that I could if I wished. It was clear that standing with me was the best choice. The humans will bend to our will.We will give them no choice.”She stood, and began to pace as she spoke into the earpiece. “It is my belief that the humans suspect our plan, so we will move now.We will surprise them.Our plans will be dark and impenetrable as night, and when we move, we will fall like a thunderbolt.We may have to fight tonight; I am prepared for it, and like every one of you, I delight in the taste of combat if it must be had.But tonight, we face fighting only a few humans, so that we might spare all the rest of humanity.We have already won.They and their minds will be ours. And so will the Earth.”

The door slid open, and Non stood, watching her with the warmest look she had seen from him in a long while.

“My spirit,” she continued, “is in this war.My heart beats with the cause, and so must each of yours.We must move as one, swift as the wind and close in formation as wood.Tonight I am filled with joy, because our plan is coming to fruition. We have worked and sacrificed in secret for it. Every one of you within these walls has bled for it.”She looked at Non, and she felt the heat rise in her own blood, and knew that the feeling must be filling the chests of all within the sound of her voice. “We have been wise, and we must continue to be so.We face an enemy that seems inferior, but do not be prideful; arrogance can be a good warrior’s undoing.But neither should any of you fear death! Take joy in knowing that our goal is within our grasp! We are saving a world by bringing its childlike inhabitants to heel, and you could not ask for a nobler task than that.Our victory, and our redemption, is close at hand! To arms!”

The floors rumbled with the sound of boots thudding down the corridors.Non was smiling.He came to her and grasped her forearms. “Forgive me,” he whispered, “for ever doubting you.”

She smiled at him.She felt righteous.She felt ecstatic.

She felt ready to die.


	11. The Muck of the Swamp and the Roar of the Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Danes return to attack

 “A few miles from here a frost-stiffened wood waits and keeps watch above a mere; the overhanging bank is a maze of tree-roots mirrored in its surface.At night there, something uncanny happens: the water burns.”

_–Beowulf_

 

 

Ingrid complained the whole way back up through the rocky cliffs to the village.“We’re bringing all our men to take three or four Saxons at most?”

Ase was not in the mood.“You know what their value would be if they’re strong and healthy and we sell them, or better yet, present them to the king.”

“But there’s only half our number in that village, why do we need all of us?”

Ase stopped and turned to her helmsman with a cold look.“That Saxon chieftain fought well.He had some skill.And his daughter was ferocious and clever.We can only assume that the rest of them are the same.”

Ingrid saw the edge of Ase’s mood and shut her mouth.The Danes ascended the path in relative quiet.

“I don’t like attacking at night,” Harald complained. “And now they are expecting us.”

“You heard Ingrid,” Ase answered with thick sarcasm.“They are only half our number.So which is it?Are you all whining like children because they will be too difficult to defeat?Or too easy?”

“I just don’t think it’s worth the trouble.”

“Then go back the Nagelfar.Your share of the spoils will include nothing that comes from this place.”

Harald shut up and kept trudging up the path.

Ase’s sword was called _Ubønhørlig_ – it meant Inexorable.And if she had chosen a direction, she would not be persuaded to abandon it.It made her great in battle.It made her the force that led a hundred shield maidens to victory against the Swedes when she first fought beside and fell in love with Njord.She was unstoppable.Most of her crew knew better than to try.She wanted her trophies from Suth-Saexe.And she wanted that chieftain’s daughter. 

And so, seventy well-armed Danes forged up the path to the village.Ase could see as they drew nearer the orange light of flames.She frowned. 

“Bonfire?” Ingrid wondered.

Ase shook her head.“Not exactly, I don’t think.”

The village was bounded on one side by a tall Roman wall.Ase knew only a little of the Romans, but she did know that when the Roman Empire had begun to crumble, it had taken the art of stonemasonry with it.By the look of things, this wall was old.The village had clearly been built to take advantage of its existence, rather than the wall having been built to protect it, as such.However, they had come upon their first obstacle: the opening in the wall that would give them access to the village on this side was not passible, thanks to several sharpened poles pointing outward, and behind that, a very large wall of fire.Ase thought that it was shaped rather like a funeral pyre, but it was hard to tell. 

“Well,” Ingrid said, “no walking through that, shield wall or no shield wall.”

Ase nodded in agreement. 

“So what, then?”

“Maybe we get Hilde to use a little of her _seidr_ to bring it down,” Harald joked.

Hilde scowled at him. “Don’t speak of that again, you fucking idiot.”

Before she had become a shield maiden and married Bjorn, Hilde had practiced _seidr_ , the most powerful and dangerous of magics. People had various speculations as to why she refused to practice it anymore.Some said she had wrought a disaster so terrible that she could never bring herself to do it again, but the exact nature of it varied. Some said she caused the death of an earl, or that she had been responsible for the pox that befell Volstagr.

Harald put his hands up. “I was just joking.”

“Harald, stop talking.”Ase fixed him with a glare and he shut up again.

Ingrid gestured to the stone wall.“So this is a very nice wall.”She stepped a little closer to it and ran a hand over it, evaluating it.She craned her neck backward, looking up at it.It was high.“Too high to climb, and not built to be climbed.”

“Yes,” Ase answered patiently, “but it is very old, and I don’t think it was specifically built to protect the village.I would bet my life that at the other end, this wall is not in nearly as good condition.I think they are hoping we will not want to go through the marsh.” She had taken note when they were up here earlier that the village was bounded by a large marshland on the far side of the wall.It was hard to tell how deep the water was but she hadn’t noticed any skiffs or rafts, so it was likely not very deep.

“Well,” Bjorn pointed out, “we _don’t_ want really to go through the marsh, do we?”

Ase turned to him.“How else, then?” 

He shrugged. 

Brida started to take out a torch, but Ase raised her iron hand.“No torches.And we need to be silent.We don’t want them to see us or hear us coming.We go in quietly, through the marsh, find the weakness in the wall, and then…” 

The crew understood. 

Night had enveloped Suth-Saexe, and the crew of the Nagelfar, led by Ase Ironhand, moved slowly along the soft, wet ground along the wall, their boots sinking further into the mud with each step.Ase moved carefully, trying not to make too much noise, a task that grew harder as the marsh’s waters grew deeper.Each step felt as though something alive was trying to grab hold of her feet and suck them into the swampy bottom.The sloshing sounds of seventy Danes walking through the marsh with swords drawn was difficult to minimize, despite their best efforts.They had broken into four groups of seventeen or so each, led by Ase, Bjorn, Harald and Ingrid.Hilde walked with Bjorn.

“Why are we going so slowly?” Hilde whispered.

“Because,” Bjorn whispered back.“We need to be quiet. In case Nidhogg the great snake lurks in the moor.”

“Don’t joke about such things,” Hilde said as she moved quietly through the water. “It’s bad luck.”

Ase looked up at the moon.They had not covered much ground, but she was sure that they would approach the end of the wall soon enough.She saw against the pale, mist-muted stars the hulk of some building just off to the north, a barn perhaps.It was hard to tell.

“They mean to ambush us,” Harald whispered unhappily.

“It is not an ambush,” Ase answered dryly, “if we are ready for them.”

 _If Harald does not shut up,_ she thought, _Hilde is leading a flank next time._ She gestured to Ingrid,and pointed toward the structure that lurked to the north of the wall. Ingrid nodded once.She wanted their two groups to break north a bit and be ready to come in from the side to defend if the Saxons had notions about meeting them here in the swamp.She motioned to Bjorn and Harald to continue to move forward closer to the wall.They nodded their assent.“Slowly,” she reminded them in a hoarse whisper.Not that Bjorn needed to be told, but Harald… he was fierce and skilled, but that was his main virtue.Cleverness, not so much.

She and Ingrid sloshed through the marsh toward the building, water up to their calves.She could feel it seeping cold into her leather boots.Little bubbles drifted up from the bottom and gathered around her legs. 

Watching peripherally, she could see that Harald had caught sight of something, possibly a place where he perceived a vulnerability, and had abandoned his caution, leading his group forward at far too quick a pace.“Harald!” she hissed.But it was too late. 

He and his men suddenly found themselves tripping and stumbling forward, some of them pitching face-first into the marsh.It looked from where Ase stood as though Halftan had fallen onto his own sword.Harald recovered but his group had gotten into a tangled knot, many of them tumbling over one another, falling into the swamp with dramatic splashing and swearing.She cursed.“Bjorn!” she called, abandoning the hope of remaining quiet.“What happened?” 

Bjorn, whose group had held back, put his hand up to stop his people moving forward.She heard Harald groan. 

“Rocks,” Bjorn called back in a bewildered tone, after a moment of assessing the situation.“Rocks at the bottom of the swamp.They tripped.They were going too fast.”He moved cautiously forward and knelt down next to where Harald crouched, nursing some injury.Sheathing his sword for a moment, he felt under the water, and then stood again, holding his hands apart to indicate the rocks’ size.They were about the size of a man’s head. 

Ase smirked.There was no natural reason for rocks of that size and shape to be at the bottom of a swamp.The Saxons had blocked the main gate to the village and, betting on the Danes choosing to come through the swamp, had laid them there to frustrate them in just this very way.Clever, she thought admiringly.With nothing but some big stones, the Saxons had already taken one Danish life and injured half a dozen more.But she had no time to consider it further, as the night was broken by a crash, a cry of pain, the sound of breaking glass, and a small fire bursting to life on one of the wooden roundshields in Harald’s flank.

“Shields!” she shouted.

“Shields!” Bjorn yelled.But even as they raised their shields, half a dozen more of these little glass fireballs followed.Ase could not see where they were coming from, but the only possibility that made sense was that they were being hurled over from the other side of the wall. 

Everything happened quite quickly, then.She looked atop the wall and saw a half dozen Saxons leaning over the lip of the wall, heaving these jars of various sizes.She was not sure what they were filled with, perhaps heated oil, but they shattered and spat flame upon contact with the Danes’ shields, backs, and skulls.Several of her men were forced to throw down their burning shields, only to find themselves cut down by an arrow from the village’s bowman, the Moor, who was crouched atop the wall.In a few minutes, a dozen Danes were killed.They must have ladders on the other side, she reasoned.Clever.

She only saw seven atop that wall, though.So the question remained; where were the others? 

“Get out of their range!” she called to Bjorn and Harald.“Get to where their fireballs can’t reach you!Keep your shields up, if you still have them!” 

Ingrid was breathing hard.“Ase, what now?” she demanded.“We fall back and then what?”

Ase was about to answer her when she heard the sound of a horse’s hooves splashing wildly through the swamp, accompanied by a battle cry.She turned around.Approaching from the darkened structure to their north was the chieftain’s daughter, on the back of a white stallion, sword drawn, riding toward them with death in her eyes.Ase’s eyes lit up.The girl was coming to her, then.Finally, a bit of good news.

As Bjorn and Harald’s flanks retreated from the foot of the wall, continuing to dodge and shield themselves from the fireballs and arrows, Ase and Ingrid’s flanks turned their attention to the chieftain’s daughter.She was, at present, unaccompanied.This either meant arrogance, or more Saxons strategically placed.Ase decided it was most likely the latter.“I want this one alive and unharmed,” she called to them.

Ingrid huffed with disgust, but the Danes fell to either side, shields up, trying to simply deflect the blows of the girl’s gleaming sword.Even at this distance, Ase could see it was a beautiful blade. The two flanks split, trying to stay out of the fearsome girl’s swing radius.The stallion trampled a few men into the ground and she cut down a handful more.Ase’s heart was stirred by her grace.“Bring down the horse!” she called.She would not be so invincible without her mount.It was a foolhardy choice to come out unaccompanied, even if she was on horseback.

So her men scattered from the wheeling stallion as it turned and reared.One of Ingrid’s people got a blow in, sinking their sword into the beast’s muscled foreleg.The sound it made was pure animal agony, and it reared up on its hind legs, and brought a hoof crashing down onto the Dane who had wounded it.

The girl’s fiery glare fixed itself on Ase then.The girl shouted something at her, the words of which Ase didn’t understand, but the spirit of which was clear enough: _Come and get me, if you dare._ She turned her wounded mount and galloped him away behind the structure.

Bjorn and what remained of Harald’s groups had straggled up to where they stood now.The Moor was still sending arrows slashing through the damp night air toward them.His reach was better than those villagers hurling glass.A quick, rough count told Ase that she had lost some twenty men in a matter of minutes and had nothing to show for it, not even some Saxon blood on her hands. 

Bjorn sloshed through the water and came to her, still gripping his wet, charred shield.“So?”

Ase nodded up at the wall.“The Moor still looses his arrows.The girl has retreated to that barn. So we move away from the wall, and the Moor, and toward the barn.”

“There may be more traps,” Bjorn suggested.He was not happy to be the voice of restraint. 

Ase was dismissive.“How many little jars of fire can they have?”

He stepped closer.“Ase…” he began carefully.

But Ase knew what he was about to suggest and would not hear his counsel.“I want the girl, and the Dane who called her sister, and two more healthy Saxons, preferably men.Then and only then will we leave this place.” 

Bjorn sighed with resignation.He and Ingrid exchanged a glance.Ingrid, though, was now roiling with the stirrings of battle rage.They had lost men, thanks to that Saxon girl, and she was itching to deal out payment.

“What is my sword’s name, Bjorn?” Ase demanded.

“ _Ubønhørlig,”_ he replied wearily.

Inexorable.

 

*****

 

Ardith could feel the unevenness in Leofric’s gait as she rode him hard back toward the storehouse.The Dane had wounded him.She could smell his blood.She could hear the Danes in pursuit, splashing violent behind her through the marsh.She came galloping around the far corner where some twenty-five Saxons waited, crouched, preparing to carry out her plan.

Wyne stood beside his great tin drum.The stone was all the way at the top of the rig, the bellows sitting open.She swung down from the horse’s back and patted him on the rump.“Sorry, Leofric.Good lad.” 

Wyne looked her warily.“So?How fucked are we?” 

“By my reckoning, we’ve felled about twenty and not yet lost a soul on our side.” She was not too prideful, but she was confident.“We’re doing well, but it’s far from over.”She pointed to the drum.“Is it ready?” 

“Ready as it’ll ever be.” 

She gestured to Edburga, who was among the Saxons ready to fall into the shield wall.He ran forth with a lit torch and she took it from him.He retook his place.She spoke low and urgent.“You can hear the Danes coming.We have only a few moments.We cannot fire too early, or they will see it coming.Nor can we wait too long, because then they will get past us and we will lose our chance.”

He nodded understanding.“I’ll man the bellows.You hold the torch and tell me when to let fly. Keep in mind it will take a second or two for the rig to do its job and the flame to come out.”

She clapped him on the shoulder.“Good man, Wyne.You will tell your children of this one day, if you ever have any.”

They grinned at each other, and then took their places.

Ardith held the lit torch at the mouth of the pipe where Wyne’s stream of marsh gas would come shooting out at full blast.It flickered a little.She could hear the Danish footsteps splashing louder and louder.The villagers were restless behind her.Her father had insisted that everyone learn to fight after that small contingent of Danes had come years ago, so they were more competent with their blades than the Danes might find in one’s average Saxon fishing village.Still, they were outnumbered, and had to use all their wits if they hoped to beat them back.

She heard war cries, taunts shouted in Danish that she didn’t understand but knew were taunts nonetheless.She heard the voice of the leader, the woman called Ase, calling out orders.Recklessly, she shouted, “Come and get me, Ase!”

Wyne looked at her as if she was mad.

She looked back at him and shrugged, as if to say, _What?_ “You’ve chosen the wrong Saxons, Ase!This marsh will be red with Danish blood by the time we’re done with you!” 

And she could feel the people behind them taking heart in her words. 

She listened as the splashing of their feet drew nearer, their shouting grew louder.She saw the first of them beginning to round the corner of the storehouse, running at breakneck pace with blade raised, and saw the stream of Danes pouring around behind him.Her heart pounded in her ears.For a moment she heard only the sounds of the marsh in the quiet.She saw the whites of the Dane’s wild eyes as he looked at her, confusion in them as he saw the torch and drum. 

“Now!” she shouted.

Wyne loosed the stone, and it dropped a little more than a third of the way down the rigging.The bellows slammed closed, and Ardith braced herself as a great torrent of flame, almost big around as a man’s head, roared forth into the night and caught a dozen or so charging Danes dead in their tracks.Their screams emboldened the Saxons behind her.She still couldn’t help hoping that Cartimandua would send men, but this was going well enough. 

She wasn’t aware of even breathing now as she watched the Danes screaming and writhing and trying to extinguish themselves.She was aware of the Saxons growing restive but she held up her hand for them to wait.No point putting people in danger if the fire was doing the work for them.“Wyne, how many more blasts like that?”

“One, maybe two.”

“Get ready to give me another…”She listened for a moment.It was clear that the Danes could hear the screams of their comrades and probably could see that there were flames, and had slowed their approach.She looked, and didn’t see the woman Ase among them.She called out again, “What’s wrong, Ase?Have you changed your mind?Where are you?”

Wyne simply shook his head and prepared to drop the rigging again.

She grinned at him.“We’re doing well,” she declared again.Whether it was for his benefit or her own, she wasn’t even sure. 

The next group emerged.This group was more prepared.Rather than charging in as the first had done, they came in formation with shields raised.It would help them, but still.Those were wooden shields, after all.She pointed to Wyne again.“Now!”

The rock lowered in the rigging, and a moment later, another head of flame poured forward and ripped across the Danish ranks.One or two were taken down, and about half lost their sheilds, and so threw them into the marsh and then split off and ran around the drum to engage the Saxons on the other side of the drum.She was almost insulted that they did not try to come at her, but decided that they must not want to risk running at a thing that spat giant tongues of flame. 

So a dozen Saxons under Edburga broke forward to meet the Danes as they charged.She called to the others to still wait.She quickly assessed the battle.There had to be one more group of Danes.This didn’t look like enough.She turned to Wyne.“Do you have another blast in there?” she asked urgently.

He shrugged.“Maybe a little one.The rock dropped further than I wanted on the last one.” 

She nodded.“Alright.We’ll try, then.”Her eyes were scanning the battle, where the Saxons were pushing forward against the Danish line, half of whom were without shields.

But then, she saw Ase.Ase, who killed her father.Ase, who was grinning at her through the smoke and flashing of steel.And a fresh rage rose up in her chest.“That one is mine,” she growled, and unsheathed Moonflame.

“Ardith,” Wyne protested, “if there’s one more group, I’ll need you to help me work the drum!”

She stared at Ase.She wanted to make that woman taste her own blood.“Can you hold the torch and just reach around to cut the rope on the rigging so that the stone drops, rather than have to stand there and work the lever?”

He sighed.“It’s not ideal, but–”

“Good,” she cut him off.She tossed the torch in his direction and strode through the squelching mud and water to face Ase in a proper fight.She trusted Wyne to release at the right moment to get whatever last bit could be gotten from his brilliant little invention.

Ase of the iron hand stood waiting for her, seeming genuinely pleased that they would fight again.Ardith carried no roundshield, but she didn’t care.Ase’s was still smoldering but intact, yet she unhooked the shield boss from her arm and threw the shield into the muck.She had done this when she’d fought Jokum too.Ardith supposed she could vaguely respect her desire for a fair fight.She’d respect it more when she’d sent her to Valhalla.

The woman said something to her in Danish.Ardith didn’t understand any of it except the word _sister_.Caja had taught her that one.She shook her head.“You’re not getting my sister,” she sneered.“She’s ridden far from here.”

Ase stood, crouched, waiting, not moving.Ardith was perplexed by her defensive posture.It didn’t make sense.The Danes were fearsome.They were aggressive.She came in and swung Moonflame around Ase’s left side, and was blocked by Ase’s iron hand.When Ase’s sword came in for a thrust, Ardith barely had time to glance it away and shift her weight back to avoid the strike.

The Dane was still grinning, and beckoned to her to come at her again.Ardith’s blood burned.She was not about to be toyed with. 

She crouched low, holding Moonflame in front of her, and darted left, blade raised as if to swing overhand, but then switched direction at the last instant and backhanded her blade at Ase’s inside line, which was vulnerable.Or would have been, if the water and muck were not slowing her down in ways she was not used to.Ase’s blade was there to meet hers, and their blades rang against each other.The force of the blow reverberated in Ardith’s shoulder. 

She moved left, feinted a few times, trying to get Ase to come forward at her, but she wouldn’t.She merely patiently moved away, seeming to taunt her.Ardith lunged forward for another cut at her, but Ase’s blade glanced hers away.

She was dimly aware of more Danes, she assumed the last of them, coming around the storehouse. 

She was dimly aware of Wyne, yelling at her.She glanced over her shoulder and saw that there were indeed more Danes, and that Wyne was hesitating to employ whatever last gasp he could get out of the drum because she and Ase were uncomfortably close to the range of the fire spout.In that split second of inattention,Ase raised a dripping leather boot, planted it against Ardith’s stomach, and kicked Ardith backward.She stumbled, but didn’t fall into the muck.But now she was angry.She wasn’t making headway and the Dane was still grinning at her. 

She needed to get them out of the range of the blast, whatever it was going to be.Ase smiled, and beckoned to her again.Furious, Ardith ran at her, Moonflame gleaming fierce in the dark, and instead of taking another cut at her, she simply crashed into the towering Dane with all her might, the flat of her blade pressed against the flat of Ase’s.Her impact was forceful, and in the muck of the swamp, Ase was unable to keep her footing and fell backward into the water with a splash.She toppled on top of Ase, the flat of her sword still pressed against Ase’s.With satisfaction, she heard a final roar of flame come from Wyne’s drum, smaller than the first two, but still enough that Ase’s face was cast in its yellow light.

What a fearsome, frightening beauty. _Why is she still smiling?_

“Ardith!” she heard Wyne cry out.

Ardith glanced over her shoulder and saw that in hesitating to fire because he did not want to hit her, that Wyne had deployed the flame too late, and that the last group of Danes had not been struck in any meaningful way.They streamed past Wyne and his drum, and made for the Saxons’ line.So now the Danes had a proper shield wall.Her only hope was to defeat the woman she was currently sprawled on top of in the muddy swamp. 

She leaned hard into her blade.“I am going to kill you now,” she growled.“And I’m keeping your sword.No Valhalla for you.” 

And then, just as Ardith had inherited her father’s skill, and her father’s kindness, she had inherited his weakness also.Just as Ase had done to Jokum, she quickly drew her iron hand back, suddenly shifting the balance of how their swords lay against each other, and the pommel of Moonflame swung back and struck Ardith in the temple.The hot, dull pain made her sway for a moment, and then Ase shoved her back and she fell off of her and into the muck.

She felt as if she were moving through syrup after the blow to the head, but she desperately fished Moonflame out of the bog and tried to get on her feet again.Ase was also scrambling into an upright position, and lunged toward her with purpose.The din of swords striking and wooden shields splintering was a thick carpet of noise in the background.Ardith’s head buzzed.She raised her blade.The Dane was smiling at her, almost encouragingly, and beckoned her to come again.Ardith lurched forward, swinging at the Dane’s right side with a backhand stroke.

Ase knocked Moonflame from her hand and stood smiling at her. _Why won’t she just strike??_

Moonflame was too far way.Ardith ducked down and simply dove at Ase’s leg, forcing her backward and almost sending them both back into the water.But this time, Ase placed her rear foot in the deeps of the mud, and met Ardith’s force.She caught Ardith in her arms and drew her tight against her chest.Ardith cursed at her.Ase said something back in Danish.She seemed to be looking over Ardith’s shoulder. 

At this moment, Ardith noticed foggily, the din of the battle had somewhat died down. 

Ase spun her around and held a knife to her throat.She saw Jetta, who had presumably climbed down from the wall and made his way over to assist them.He was standing in the black water, surrounded by the bodies of Danes burning, with an arrow nocked, pointed in her direction.

“Ardith,” he called to her, “can you get free of her?”

Ardith struggled against the Dane’s grip for a moment.The edge of the blade bit into the skin of her throat a little, and she stilled.“I don’t think so.Just take your shot.”

He narrowed his eyes, staring down the shaft of his arrow.“I don’t want to hit you.”

“Then don’t.Hit _her_!”

Ase began to speak.Ardith felt the blade press againt her throat, the metal cold on her skin.The Danes had stopped, and were listening.The Saxons had stopped, and were watching. 

“Jetta, please shut her up!” Ardith called.

He readjusted his grip on the bow, squinted down the shaft again, and shook his head.“It’s too close!”

Her eyes flitted wildly over to where the Danes and Saxons were halted in mid-clash.Ase was still talking.Ardith slowly had the thought that the Saxons were afraid to take advantage of this moment in which the Danes had ceased fighting, because they did not want Ase to kill her.“They are not watching you!” she called.“South Saxons, show them what the men of Haedwalle are made of!It does not matter what happens to me!This is all of our homes and they will not-”

And then she heard someone mutter something behind her, a different voice that did not sound like Ase, and then something struck the back of her head, and the world went black.


	12. The Tennyo of Himeji

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jigai is interrupted by something that neither Aguri nor Myoge can explain.

The zendo property seemed to essentially consist of three tiers: the lowest one housed the lecture hall, a shrine, and a hall of memorial for deceased lay people, and also had a large garden that functioned as a receiving area for those coming up to the zendo from what Myoge had called the Silent Path.The middle tier housed the dormitories, kitchen, dining hall, bath house, and the _sōdō_ , where the members of the order sat _zazen_ , meditating sometimes for hours at a time.

Their destination, though, was the third tier, which housed a dirt-floored training yard, the armory, the laundry, and a large, carefully-tended garden with a stream that cut through it, flowing in from the mountain beyond the outer wall.

She considered the trees and their precise, sculpted branches catching the late afternoon light, the perfect rows of gravel raked just so, the colors of the late spring blooms, and the quiet trickle of the stream that ran down the green slope of the mountain.All things being equal, this was an acceptable place to die.She felt a curious moment of peace, glad that she had not died in the forest but was being allowed by the gods to have her _jigai_ here, in such a beautiful place. Even if she was surrounded by Buddhists.

“You have chosen a good place,” she said to Myoge as they walked.She could only see the back of the nun’s head.

Myoge took her time in responding.“It’s really the only place,” she said at last.“Everyone should die with their honor intact, even you.”

Aguri accepted the dig without response.The moment was too solemn to continue tangling with the girl, no matter how infuriating she was.She followed Myoge off the path to where the stream bent itself in a gentle crook around the back of the garden.She smelled the pine and cedar, the perfume of the flowers, and the freshness of the air. In particular, a very tall, dense white pine seemed to permeate each breath she took.She had not noticed how thick the air was in the city, or even in the farmlands and villages where the animals and laundries and other smells crowded it, but now that she was breathing in the mountains, she could feel it.She could not remember when she had last breathed such clean, easy breaths.

“What brought you to this place, Myoge?” she asked as she walked toward the water.

Myoge stopped, and turned around to look at her, her head tilted with a curious little smile.“Why?What does that matter now?”

Aguri shrugged.“I only wondered…” Her pride reared its head a little.“…how one ends up becoming a Buddhist.”

Myoge snorted.“So you are going to be like this to the last, then.”

Aguri bridled, but lowered her head.“I apologize. You have been kind to me.”

Myoge turned away and continued walking through the grass toward the stream and the great white pine.“No.But I have been humane,” she answered after a moment.

“Is that what your Buddha teaches?”

“Yes.Years ago, I would have killed you where I had found you.”She paused, glancing over her shoulder.“The Buddha has taught me a better way.”

Aguri wondered what that meant.Her first encounter with the young woman involved being addressed at the business end of a wooden staff, and she clearly looked as though she could handle it.Why develop skill if not to use it? 

They arrived at the stream’s edge.Myoge turned to her.The sun was sinking, its light slowly becoming redder and richer.It cast shadows on the nun’s face as they looked at each other.

“So,” Myoge began, her tone becoming more businesslike, “I have brought the things you need. I have a dagger, and a bit of rope, and I’ll bind your ankles for you.Is this spot to your liking?”

Aguri stopped, and looked out, over the walls of the monastery, at the sun sinking below the next mountain peak, miles away.It was a burning red disc, swimming in a haze of cloud. _Amaterasu, forgive my failures._ “Yes, this is… it is fine.”

She knelt down, and gazed into the rippling surface of the stream.Its movement was gentle, and her reflection stared back at her, wavering.She was a shadow of the warrior that she remembered. The eyes that looked back at her were tired, haunted.In the monk’s robes that Myoge had given her to wear, she looked poor.Hunched over, staring at her reflection, she no longer looked proud as she once had.The world no longer had a use for a samurai like the one that looked back at her.She was barely recognizable to herself.Only that white streak in her hair made her sure she was still seeing her own reflection.

Behind her, Myoge was binding her ankles, so that if she fell to one side or the other, she would not end up in an indecent pose.“Noboru’s Claw,” she was muttering, “we can’t have you abandoning your modesty.”

That epithet made Aguri wince.“Please don’t call me that.” She knew why Myoge did so. She had often fought without honor in her husband’s service. _What good am I,_ she wondered, _if I fight without honor?_

Myoge hesitated a moment.“I’m sorry,” she said, and then came behind her and leaned down, placing a hand on her shoulder.Her other hand came around, and Aguri saw the dagger in it.For a moment she panicked that now that the nun had gone to all this trouble and bound her feet, that she was going to rob her of _jigai_ after all and simply slit her throat. But she merely offered the blade, and Aguri took it.“No-one wants to be remembered for the worst things they’ve done, do they.”

Myoge’s face appeared over her shoulder in the reflection in the water.She had said that she was not kind, only humane.There was a beauty to that, Aguri thought.And they both gazed together into the water.

“Are you ready?” Myoge asked gently.

“In a moment,” Aguri answered, her voice small and humble.

“Let me know when, and I’ll leave you to it.” No sarcasm in her tone now.Myoge’s hand was warm on her shoulder.Her scent was cedar and incense and clear mountain air, and somehow felt familiar, like home, only not like a home that Aguri had any memory of.She felt a twinge of doubt that she was meant to die here after all.

“You know,” the nun murmured as they gazed at their shared reflection, “I can’t help feeling the movement of dharma in you being sent to me.”

“What does that mean?” Aguri whispered.The water rippled their reflections, and for a moment she thought that they were turning into something else. 

“It means that there is an order to all things, even if we don’t perceive it.It means, our paths converged to share this moment, and that is as it should be.”

Something about those words rang true in Aguri’s chest, like a gong being struck inside her.She shuddered at it.The water’s surface became dark, and for a moment, her heart stopped.Two entirely different faces stared back at them from the water.Different, but somehow, still theirs.Their hair, their skin, their clothing, it was all different, unrecognizable.Aguri saw her own skin was pink, her eyes wide and blue-green like the sea, her body clothed in some kind of armor, but nothing she had ever seen before.Aguri knew of no-one who looked or dressed in such a way.Nevertheless, it was them; Myoge with her wise, dark, clever eyes, and Aguri with the white streak in her hair.She gasped, and dropped the dagger.It fell into the stream with a splash and broke the reflection.When the water’s surface reshaped itself, the reflection had returned to normal.

Aguri found her breath after a moment.“Did you see that?” she demanded, barely able to draw breath.

Myoge squeezed her shoulder.“I saw _something_ ,” she admitted reluctantly. “It could have been a trick of the light.”

“It was not a trick of the light!” Aguri snapped.Her heart was pounding.She had no idea what it meant, but she had never been one that the gods chose to favor with visions.That had always been her sister’s province. “It was you, and me, but we were different. You cannot tell me you believe it was a trick of light.It was a vision, and we both saw it.”

Myoge sighed heavily, and came forward and knelt down beside her.“I don’t have visions.”

“I don’t either.Yet we both did.”

They didn’t look at each other, instead staring into the stream, wondering if it might come back again.“What will you do?” Myoge asked finally. 

Aguri shook her head.“I don’t know. But I … I am not sure that I am so ready to die as I was a moment ago.Why would the _kami_ send me such a vision, now of all times?And why would we both share it?It’s too impossible.” 

“But a _samurai_ must always be ready to die,” Myoge said, and her tone was gently teasing, but not mocking, somehow.

“This one is not,” Aguri said.“I have spent every night for years now dreaming of my own death.And to this day, I do not fear it.But, this was not random.This is a sign.I do not fear death, but I do not think this is when I am meant to die.”

Another long quiet fell.Then Myoge said, “Nichiren says that life is the most precious of all treasures, and even one extra day of life is worth more than ten million _ryo_ of gold.”

Aguri nodded slowly.Perhaps not all Buddhism was nonsense after all. 

“But,” Myoge went on after another long pause, “this does create a problem for you with regard to your honor.” 

Aguri’s shoulders fell.The nun was correct.

“You betrayed your vows to your lord and husband, and killed three of his retainers.You are _ronin_ now.By rights, _jigai_ was the only honorable way for you.”

Aguri nodded morosely.

“Except…”

Aguri dared not look up from her reflection in the running water.“Except?”

“Except, of course, if you were to join the order.”

Aguri sat up and looked at her sharply.“You’re joking!”

Myoge smirked.“I’m not.Why would I joke about such a thing? If you became a nun, you would be able to keep your honor intact.Obviously, we cannot hide you here forever as a _ronin_. There is no honor in that for you. And you would still be recognized if you went back out into the world. And then who knows what would happen to you?”

The nun was right.There was no honor in hiding in a Buddhist monastery.But become a Buddhist?“I’ll take my chances out there,” she said stubbornly.

Myoge chuckled.“Your pride is a great stumbling block for you, Aguri.I’m offering you a way to keep both your life and your honor.A little gratitude might be appropriate.”

“Honor,” Aguri huffed. “Betraying my gods.”

“You’ve already done that.”

Aguri glared at her.

“I’m sure they’ll understand.” Myoge was smiling at her now, almost playful.

“Stop toying with me.”

“Join us,” Myoge insisted.She became serious then, and took her hand.“Join us,” she whispered.“Stay, and find out with me what we just saw.Aren’t you curious?”

Aguri slouched down.She stared up at the sunset.The sky was pink and streaked with smudges of dark cloud.“Of course I am.”

“Take tonight.Think about it.Decide in the morning.If you still would prefer to take your chances out there, turning yourself in for Noboru’s ‘justice’ or dying dishonorably in some stupid battle, you can always go.Or if you decide you’d rather die by your own hand, _jigai_ will remain an option.But… consider Zen as an alternative.” 

Aguri’s stomach rumbled.She was, in any case, not going to die right this moment, and her body had decided it wanted real food.“Fine,” she grunted.

Myoge stood.“Good.”She had become brisk and businesslike again.“Let’s eat.”She began to walk back toward the lodgings. 

“Myoge?” Aguri called after her.

“Hm?”

“Untie my feet, please?”

 

****

 

Myoge was less at ease than she might have seemed to a casual observer.The other nuns in the common room were throwing glances her way when she walked in with Aguri.She was aware of their whispers.She was, in truth, uncertain that she was making a wise decision, and she probably should have consulted the roshi first, but how could she leave a mystery like the one she just witnessed unexplored?

Nevertheless, the looks ranged from curious to uncomfortable to downright hostile.

“Why do they stare?”

Myoge placed two bowls on the table, laden with a variety of vegetables, prepared by the nuns and monks in the kitchens; eggplant, her favorite, and greens, and root vegetables in a clear broth.“Because many of them know who you are.”

Myoge briefly brought her hands together in prayer over the food, muttering, a brief prayer before digging in:“With thankfulness, I accept this meal by reflecting on my own work, to see whether I deserve it.”

Aguri gave her a raised eyebrow.

“Many of the people here know of Noboru’s cruelty.And they know your role in it. It should be no surprise that they might be unhappy to see you.” She smiled tightly.“It’s the price of your fame.”

“It only used to be fame.”Aguri delved into the dish in front of her.“It’s bland,” she commented.

“You’re used to the food at court,” Myoge answered, savoring a slice of eggplant slowly melting in her mouth.She couldn’t be bothered to be insulted by Aguri’s complaints. 

“No meat.”

“No meat.”Myoge smiled at her.“We don’t kill animals for food.”

Aguri frowned.“But why so bland?”

Myoge shook her head.“It’s not.It’s subtle.You’re so used to everything being drizzled with wasabi, punctuated with pickled ginger, doused in soy sauce…”

“Yes, that all sounds delicious, what is your point?”

“You’re not used to tasting the actual food.”

Aguri huffed.

Myoge leaned forward.She nudged at a slice of eggplant in Aguri’s dish.“Taste that.Hold it in your mouth for a moment and taste the actual food.The actual vegetable, itself.Let it melt on your tongue.Enjoy the subtleties of it.”Her eyes twinkled a little.“See if you can stand to explore some tastes that are a little less violent.”

Aguri tossed her a skeptical glance, but took the eggplant in her mouth and closed her eyes.Myoge watched her face considering the flavor and texture of it, slowly, carefully.A frown crossed her face, and then a mild surprise. She opened her eyes.“It will take some getting used to,” was all she said.

“You enjoyed it,” Myoge decided, ignoring Aguri’s attempt to avoid admitting having been wrong.

Aguri’s eyes met hers, challenged her.They stayed that way for a moment, Aguri glaring impotently, Myoge smiling quietly.She enjoyed raising the _ronin’s_ hackles. 

A younger nun, Senkō, approached their table and glanced between them, then turned her attention to Myoge.“So, it’s true then.Aguri Inouye dines with us.Did you ask the roshi?”

“He has made me responsible for her,” Myoge answered coolly.“I wouldn’t be very responsible if I didn’t feed her.”Myoge had disliked Senkō immediately when she had come to the monastery; she was too hungry for attention, too concerned with being seen as enlightened.Some of this was just youth. She’d outgrow it.

“You’re right of course.” Senkō nodded to Aguri.“It’s an honor to share a meal in the presence of The _Tennyo_ of Himeji.”

This epithet referred to the Battle of Nagashino, at Himeji Castle, in which Aguri had descended on the enemy with the back of her bamboo armor on fire, leading a small flank that ripped through the Takeda guard once the siege had been broken. Everyone who was there had said she looked like a _tennyo_ , a beautiful, fearsome female celestial spirit. It had stuck for a long time. It was one of the kinder honorifics Senkō could have chosen.

Myoge saw the immediate suspicion in Aguri’s look. “You embarrass me,” Aguri responded.

Myoge smirked.“Won’t you sit down, Senkō?”

Senko bowed. “Surely I’m not worthy.”Myoge knew that Senkō wasn’t about to dine with someone of Aguri Inouye’s reputation.But neither was she departing.“I do hope your shoulder is healing well. Is Myoge taking care of you?”

Aguri continued her careful politeness. “Yes.She is very skilled.”

Senko continued, “If you are sufficiently healed soon, perhaps you would honor us with a demonstration of your skill?”

Ah, there it was.Senkō’s challenge, couched in passive aggression and honorifics.She wanted a crack at Aguri Inouye.And Aguri’s pride would not let her refuse, no matter that she would probably end up bleeding from even the simplest solo _iaido_ demonstration, let alone a sparring match.

“My right arm is not at its best, but I could demonstrate left-handed,” Aguri offered. 

Myoge groaned inwardly.

“Well, perhaps you can join us for training tomorrow morning,” Senkō suggested. “You would honor us by doing so.”

“Training?” Aguri inquired.

“Of course,” Senkō replied.“We are a martial order, after all. Of course we train.”

Myoge saw a look of understanding cross Aguri’s face.This was not an ordinary zen monastery, but a home for those who trained in warrior arts.Senkō was not simply inviting her for a demonstration of some sword tricks, but to spar.And now Aguri had offered to do so, left-handed, and could not back out without embarrassing herself.

Myoge glared at Senkō.She knew, of course, how this would go. Word would spread.This would end up taking place in front of the entire order, the roshi would be annoyed with her, and Aguri would probably hurt herself with this stupidity. 

“We will join you in the yard in the morning, then,” Myoge informed Senkō, in a tone that indicated the conversation was finished.

Senko smiled, and bowed to both of them.She had gotten what she wanted.She walked away.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Myoge leaned forward and hissed, “Do you simply ignore me when I speak?Your pride will be your undoing!”

Aguri looked at her, wounded but stubborn. “She manipulated me!”

Myoge shook her head.“Yes, she did, but even if she only intended a normal solo _iaido_ demonstration , even that is not something you ought to be doing yet, you’re not healed! Why hide from your own reputation just to be the same person behind these walls as you would be outside them?”

Aguri frowned.

“Pride is not the same as honor,” Myoge sighed after a moment. She remembered when she, too, made such mistakes. Using pride as a replacement for honor.Vengeance as a replacement for justice.Grabbing at that which seemed easiest to attain.She looked sympathetically at Aguri.“You have many things to unlearn, Aguri.”

Aguri shook her head.“I have not yet agreed to join the order,” she answered after an uncomfortable moment.

“Even if you don’t,” Myoge said gently, “Bushido has not taught you everything you need to understand.”

Aguri ate her greens in silence. 

“You will not fight Senkō tomorrow,” Myoge decided after a moment.

Aguri bristled.“But–”

“You will fight me.” 

“So you can take it easy on me? I won’t have it.”

Myoge shook her head.“I suspect even left-handed, your skills exceed Senkō’s.She’s young, and skilled for her age, but I’m going to do her a favor and protect her from her own idiocy, though she won’t appreciate it much.”

Aguri paused, looking at her curiously.“So you believe yourself to be my equal, then?”

Myoge shrugged.“Closer to it than Senkō. And you are, as I have said, my responsibility.”

Aguri nodded and said nothing more during their meal, only pausing from time to time to look at her with something near to fascination.Myoge wished that she could have known her in her youth, before her soul had been worn down by the weight of so many bad deeds.And she wondered; how had they been brought together?And to what purpose?

That night she dreamt of a lover who she could not see, whose kisses were silk and whose body was iron.And then she woke in the morning dark, and made ready.


	13. Extraordinary Sisters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Astra's visit to Alex's apartment, reimagined a bit

She could hear the human’s voice well before she entered her apartment. 

National City was a cacophony, one that Astra had learned for the most part to shut out when she wanted to focus on something, but the voice of the human, Alexandra Danvers, was offering her such a singular focus that she was able to follow it almost thoughtlessly.Her voice was chanting, words that Astra did not recognize, not English, not any of the smatterings of other human languages she knew.It almost felt as though the words themselves did not matter.They repeated, their strange tone not quite musical, but not quite speech.They held purpose.What the purpose was, Astra could not guess.

She descended from the air above the apartment building to drift soundlessly through the human’s window.The air was perfumed, not overwhelming, but distinct.Delicate, warm, like trees, like embers.She saw the human sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, continuing to chant. Astra tilted her head and watched for a moment.

The human agent wore a sleeveless shirt, her hair was damp, and Astra could see artwork on her skin; the painting of flowers across her shoulder blade, and something else that looked like ocean waves around one of her arms.She wondered what they signified.She listened to the rhythms of the human’s breath in between her cycles of chanting, and unconsciously felt herself wanting to match her breathing.She watched the expansion and contraction of her ribcage as she breathed.She wondered how it would be to fully explore a human body through touch, and whether they were too delicate for such things.She had seen her niece have physical contact with the humans, though Astra never quite understood how she did so without breaking them.But this Alexandra was lean, slender, and fit, and Astra could almost imagine her with Kryptonian powers.It did not feel like a stretch of the imagination to picture her picking up vehicles, lighting buildings aflame with her eyes, taking flight…

The chanting stopped.“I almost didn’t hear you,” the human said.She stood slowly, and Astra watched her, in apprehension.

“I am impressed that you did.”

Alex narrowed her eyes and stared at Astra.She pulled a gun from her waistband, and began discharging it.It was like thunder compressed into a small space.Astra was aware of the projectiles, could see them as if they were moving toward her like butterflies, could feel them bouncing harmlessly off her skin like drops of water.She felt that shift in her state of being as she engaged her powers and was upon the human in what felt like a few moments but she knew the human experienced as a split second.When she tapped into her speed, the world moved past as though she were swimming through thick liquid, and the human stood there, slowly squeezing off shots that rang out for a long time before dying away, the projectiles moving toward her as if on wings. 

Astra felt her hands grip the human’s throat and she lifted her off the floor. The gun clattered out of her hand. _No match for me,_ she thought with satisfaction, although a voice, very small, in the back of her mind, nagged at her that without her powers, this human might be able to pose a real challenge.Small and soft, yes, but Astra had seen her skill and more importantly, her courage.There was fear in the human’s eyes, now, though.Astra became aware of the fragility of those bones in her neck, the urgent thudding of blood in the human’s veins.She realized that she was probably killing her, and slightly horrified, she released her.

Alex Danvers dropped to the floorboards, landing on her feet, clutching at her throat and gasping for air. 

“Don’t waste your bullets,” Astra told the human, watching as she breathed deeply and rubbed her neck, glaring up at her through her damp hair, which had fallen into her eyes.She smelled like the ocean, like clean air and salt water.“I did not come here to fight.”

Alexandra coughed.“So that was hello on Krypton, I guess.” She breathed a few more times.“So I guess the DEO got hold of you, huh?”

Astra looked at her, confused.“I have spoken with no-one from your organization.”

Alexandra Danvers looked at her with consternation, mirroring her confusion. 

Astra held her stance, waiting for Alex to recover herself before speaking.She glanced around the space.She saw a book on the countertop in the kitchen area, “The Art of War.” She picked it up, turned it over in her hands.“What is this?”

“Required reading,” the human answered, her voice ragged, still.

Astra turned it over in her hands and scanned the back. _“…It is commonly known to be the definitive work on military strategy and tactics of its time. It has been the most famous and influential of China’s Seven Military Classics, and for the last two thousand years it has remained the most important military treatise in Asia, where even the common people knew it by name…”_ She looked at the human.“You are reading this?”

“I’ve read it several times.”Alex placed her hands on her hips and gave Astra a defiant stare that shook something in Astra’s chest.“But I’m guessing you’re not here for a book club meeting.”

Astra nodded and laid the book back down.“I am here because I want to help you. Kara is trapped in unconsciousness, and I know you cannot get her out.”

The human’s eyes blazed.“Oh, _now_ you show up,” she spat.

Astra sighed, and stepped closer.She kept her hands at her sides, to attempt to show her no threat.“Do not let your hatred for me blind you to an opportunity to save her.”

Alexandra stood smoldering at her for a moment, then demanded, “What do you know about it?”

“It was Non’s doing.Without my order or permission,” Astra explained tersely. “The plant is called the Black Mercy.It is a telepathic parasite.It reaches into its victim’s mind, discerns their deepest desires, and then creates a hallucination that the victim has no desire to leave.Any attempt to remove it from the host will kill the host, and the host itself will fight the removal because it is being given exactly what it wants.”

Alexandra looked sick. “Why help me?”

Astra shook her head.“I think that honor is as important to you as it is to me.I think you understand that I cannot allow my niece to die without it.” 

“You still love her,” Alexandra observed.

Astra grew uncomfortable at this.“Kara saved me from a death without honor… as did you.As a fellow soldier I expect you understand the meaning of that, and what I owe you both because of it.”

The human was skeptical.“That’s all, then.”

Astra’s eyes dropped down to the waves that curled around the human’s bicep.She couldn’t answer the question. “What is the meaning of that painting on your arm?” The last time she’d seen it, she hadn’t quite had the strength to ask about it.

Alexandra glanced down, then back up at her. “It’s a symbol of forces greater than myself.And my willingness to dive headlong into them, without fear.”

Astra nodded, understanding the meaning in her words.“And the flowers on your back?”

The slender human’s eyes seemed to darken and for a moment, Astra felt something like fear.“They’re cherry blossoms.A bloom with a short season.A reminder that life is fleeting.”

“Do you dream of your own death often?”

Alexandra’s look turned cautious. “Do you?”

“All the time,” Astra admitted.

“I think every warrior does,” the human said after a moment. “It makes you fear it less.”

Astra nodded in agreement.She wondered whether they would have been comrades had they met under different circumstances. She wondered what the name Starflower meant. She wondered whether the human’s magnetism had significance beyond her beauty. Astra, after all, had had women before, and knew beauty when she saw it. She wondered what would they would learn if they could actually talk about what had happened between them when they first met. But if the human was telling the truth, that was not possible and never would be.

She glanced over the smaller woman’s shoulder, and noticed for the first time several pictures of Alexandra Danvers and Kara, from youth until now.They had grown up together, attended celebrations of one another’s rites of passage, shared in one another’s accomplishments, as sisters did.Astra felt a pang of loss, remembering how she had once had an extraordinary sister with whom she shared such things.

She saw the look of panic cross the human’s face as she realized what Astra was seeing.“Sisters,” Astra said slowly.“I knew there was more to you and my niece.”

Astra had, from the first, found in this human a peculiar kind of force, but never more so than in this moment.“You forfeited your right to know about her life when you decided to try and enslave this planet,” Alexandra growled.

Not quite sure if she sought conciliation, or something else, Astra mused aloud, “Yet you _are_ her sister.And I am her aunt.What, then, are we to each other?”

“Nothing,” the human said, and for a moment, Astra was filled with emotions that she couldn’t name and could barely tame.For a moment, she wanted to grip this human and release the force of these feelings onher breakable human body.But she wasn’t even sure what those feelings were.She only knew they were so powerful that in this moment, with their gazes locked, she dared not touch her.

She took a deep breath and focused once more on her reason for coming here.“What you must do,” she explained quietly, “is you must cause her to reject the hallucination herself.You must enter her mind, and make her remember you, and make her remember why she wants to be in this life and not the false one that is everything she thinks she desires and that will seem so very, very real to her.”

Astra noticed the human’s brow furrow at this. 

“Her life on Krypton is gone,” Astra reminded her. “And if your love for her is half as strong as I think it is, she will return to you.You are likely the only one she would come back for.”

“How could you know that?”

“Because.It is rare that she is in battle and you are not close at her heels.”

They were standing uncomfortably near now.They had moved into one another’s space and Astra wasn’t quite sure why.They both looked away.She was visited by emotions attached to sense memories that she didn’t have.

“This all could be different, Astra,” the human whispered, seeming sad. A wayward lock of her dark hair hung over one eye.

Astra shook her head.“I do not think so.”She stepped back, feeling suddenly ungainly.“I am sorry for having interrupted your… prayers.”Before she was aware enough to stop herself, Astra reached out and tucked the errant strands of the human’s hair behind her ear.

Alex Danvers flinched a little but did not withdraw.“Not prayers,” she said.“Just meditation.”

Astra nodded.

Alexandra seemed to pull herself together then. She became businesslike.She grabbed a jacket that was draped over a chair and shrugged it on.“I’m going to go now and find out whether you’ve told me the truth.”She gestured toward the open window that Astra had entered through.“Feel free to see yourself out.”

Astra tugged at the hem of her own jacket, something in black designed to help her “blend in” when she did reconnaissance among the humans, and then as Alexandra strode toward the door, she nicked the book from off of the countertop and slid it into an inner pocket. 

“If you insist on stealing my books,” the human said without looking back at her, “I can recommend something you might benefit from a little more than that one. You have a lot of things you could stand to unlearn.”

Astra smiled faintly.“I promise I will return it.”

She made her way to the window, and then out it.

 

********

 

Alex’s hands shook as she drove out to the DEO.Yet again, another encounter with Astra in which Astra could have killed her and didn’t.It didn’t add up.These weren’t the behaviors of a conqueror.They weren’t the behaviors of a villain bent on world domination.There was a deeply feeling soul in that woman, Alex was sure of it.

She rang her commanding officer.“J’onn,” she said urgently when he picked up, “did Susan manage to trace the Fort Rozz signal from the hack they did on the GIDEON satellite?”

“No, why?”

“I just got a visit from a Kryptonian with a rock & roll hairdo, and she told me what we need to do to get Kara out from under that thing.”

“What does it involve?”

“Well, the plant is a telepathic parasite.It reads her deepest desires and feeds her hyper-real hallucinations about it.I… I have to go into her mind, and talk her out of it.Make her remember her real life here, with us, and get her to reject the hallucination.”

A long pause followed in which J’onn considered this. “That’s it?”

“Yeah.Kara won’t detach from the plant unless she rejects the hallucinations it’s feeding her.That means I’ve got to go in.”

“You do know how dangerous that is,” he pointed out.But she could hear that he was already resigned to letting her try.“You could fry both your minds, you could be killed, or you could both end up trapped in the hallucinations.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You also know that Astra could very well be lying to you, and trying to get both of you into an inescapable situation to take both you and Kara out of play?”

Alex winced.She knew that he was right, that there was a chance of that.Astra had lied to them before.But Kara was already out of play.And while Alex felt a strange respect, even admiration from Astra, it still seemed like that of a god entertained by the antics of a mere mortal.Alex doubted that Astra saw her as enough of a threat to be worth the bother.

But there was something else.Astra had seemed sincere in wanting her to save Kara.She seemed angry at what Non had done.And she had taken the book, almost like a souvenir.Alex knew she had every reason to distrust Astra yet for some reason, her mind kept seizing on these little things that said that there was more to what was happening. _What are we to each other?_ Astra had asked. _Nothing,_ Alex had responded in anger.It somehow, for reasons she couldn’t quite place, felt like a lie.

“Agent Danvers?” J’onn pressed her.

“Yeah, sorry.I’ve… I’ve considered that possibility, J’onn, but this is also the only shot we have.And I can’t tell you why, but … I think she’s telling the truth this time.I think she still loves Kara.I think she doesn’t want her to die this way.I think that if she wanted to kill me just now, she could have, and she didn’t.And I think… call me crazy, but I think if she’s going to kill me, she wants it to be in battle.Like a warrior.”

Another long silence.“Alright, Agent Danvers.You’re going in, then.Find your place of Zen.I suspect you’re going to need it.”


	14. The Difficulty of a Single Saxon Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ardith wakes up on the Danish ship in a bit of a bind.

Ardith gasped.

Thrust from blackness, she found herself bound, wrists bound with thick, prickly rope.The awakening was brutal and sudden; a moment before, she had been in Ase’s iron grip with a knife at her throat and now there was no knife at her throat, no iron grip, but she was somewhere, somewhere dark, somewhere that moved and creaked and sent her stomach dizzyingly into her chest and back down.She wanted to vomit.She breathed heavily, gagged on a cry of rage, gagged on a sob, gagged on the inside of her own throat.A few torches burned in the dark.The conversation was all in Danish.

She was on their ship.

She looked around wildly, panic rising in her throat.She gagged again.She breathed deep and laid her head back against whatever it was behind her and tried to feign sleep for a moment longer.She knew almost no Danish, a few words here and there that Caja had taught her, but she would reach for whatever she could dig out of the depths of her mind.

She heard Wyne’s voice beside her, whisper, “Ardith?Are you awake?”

Eyes still closed, she whispered back, “Shut up.”

“A yes, then.”

They remained quiet a moment.Toward the other end of the ship, about a dozen men were working a winch, heaving thick ropes to adjust the great yard and, she guessed, tightened the great square sail that was suspended from it.She opened her eyes and tried to see over the lip of the hull.The sky was streaked with dawn and the stars had mostly burnt out.The vessel sat low in the water, as the Danish ships did, and she could make out the tips of the white cliffs along the Strait of Dover.She had wanted to make this trip one day.She had not intended for it to go like this, lashed to a capstan on the deck of a Danish warship.

“The cliffs,” she whispered.“We haven’t got that far, then.”

“No. But they mean to take us as slaves, I think, and I don’t see much of a way out of that.”

On the other side of her, she heard Jetta’s voice.“Give her a few minutes, she just needs to figure out a plan.”

Ardith felt mocked, but she knew he was sincere.Jetta was kind and honest. Ardith suspected that he loved her, but she had been dodging a proposal for years now.She also suspected that Wyne loved Jetta, but neither of those facts were worth much at present.

“What happened?”

Jetta huffed.“It was too close, the way she was holding you.I couldn’t get a shot.One of her lieutenants got tired of you trying to rally the folk, and struck you in the back of the head with the hilt of her sword. The woman, Ase, the one who killed your father, she was angry at this, and they had words.Nearly thought she was going to kill the woman who’d hit you.Then Ase, she decided she wanted me and Wyne as well.Ordered her men to take us while the rest fought off the townsfolk. Without you to lead them…”He trailed off.“It didn’t go so well.So, she took us and left.” 

Ardith, still exhausted, grieving and angry, was too wrung out to cry. 

“You nearly did it,” Wyne said.“You nearly beat back a force of hardened Danes more than twice our number.Clever plans, those.”

“‘Nearly’ doesn’t get us off this ship, though,” she said bitterly.

She looked around, as much as she could.The sail was massive, billowing red.It wasn’t full.Not much wind along the Strait, she reckoned.She saw perhaps thirty big, brawny Danes manning oars down each side of the ship.She and her friends were tied up to a heavy barrel near the bow.Those rowing were intent on their task and little else.The mood among the crew was muted, a little sour.They had not expected to lose so many men, she thought with a little flash of pride.

A big blondDane, perhaps the one who had taken Ase’s shield when her father fought her, was up at the front, watching the oarsmen heaving forward, then back, silent and perfectly synchronized.She marveled that they needed no drums to keep time with one another.Another woman, one Ardith was sure she recognized from the battlefield, was standing atop something at the bow, peering out and then calling out directions to the big blond man.He called out a command and it was repeated by another voice farther down the ship.

She wondered where Ase was.

She shivered a little.The early morning was cold.Her breeches were still intact along with her shift, thank the gods, but her mail shirt had been taken and she had no cloak. 

A shadowy figure emerged from the middle of the deck.That was where people slept, she reckoned, while the others were rowing or doing whatever they did.It was hard to tell how deep these dragon boats were, but judging by the height of the figure who emerged from below, she guessed that there was room for stowing plenty of plunder below the decking planks, but not enough for a grown adult to stand comfortably.

The figure strode nearer to her.She recognized him as one of the ones from Ase’s first group.He was knotted like a tree and his arms were covered with a filigree of tattoos.She thought she recognized Thor’s hammer among them.He knelt down in front of her, his face full of winking menace and stinking of ale, and said something to her in Danish.She returned nothing but a defiant stare.He looked down at her shift, which was thin and slipping to one side.He squeezed her shoulder with one rough hand.A sick feeling filled her.She spat in his face.

She recognized some Danish curses then.Grinning, he wiped the spit from his cheek.Wyne began yelling at him, and was immediately repaid with a quick punch in the mouth.She saw Wyne’s head snap back.Still tied against the capstan, she shouted curses at him in English, then.“Danish son of a whore!” she yelled.She didn’t want him to strike Wyne again, so she sought to invite his wrath.Her mind coughed up the only curse she knew in Danish, one that Caja had taught her when she’d come to them at the age of nine: “ _Swina bqllr!”_ she yelled.As she understood it, its equivalent in English was, “Pig penises!”

The Dane stopped and first looked surprised, then amused, then angry.

He unsheathed a small knife in his belt, and returned his attention to her.His eyes were dark and full of malice and he held her shoulder with one hand and lowered the knife down to the lacing on the front of her shift.She continued staring at him defiantly.Her eyes darted to where he was crouched.She coiled her leg up and then snapped it forward, kicking him more or less where she reckoned his tender bits were.

He gave an angry grunt and toppled back, landing on his ass ungracefully.Growling, he regained his footing and brandished his little blade.The woman and man at the bow were laughing at him and teasing him in Danish, which clearly fanned his anger further.Ardith didn’t care.She’d already had a knife at her throat today, and by Ase of the iron hand,no less.Who did this drunk think he was?

“Harald!”

Ardith looked up.Ase came striding up from the stern of the ship, her footsteps heavy on the wooden deck, cloak swinging behind her.The heavily tattooed Dane put his knife away and raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture.Ase was not having it.There was a brief back and forth between them in Danish that went by too quickly for Ardith to catch any of the words.She flashed her own knife, placed it under his chin, and growled at him, “ _Dinne er min._ ”Her voice was a force – low, strong, sinuous, commanding.

 _Dinne er min._ Ardith was fairly sure she understood the word: _Mine._

 

 

*****

 

Harald backed away, grinning at Ase as he always did.“It’s not fair, you know,” he pointed out, “that you don’t let me take anything for myself, but you keep that one.”

“When you have your own ship, Harald, you can run it how you like,” she responded.“This ship is mine.And so is that girl.Now fuck off and go back to sleep.Next watch is yours.”

She turned her attention back to the girl, who was looking at her with burning, defiant rage.Ase’s heart stirred. Even in such a state, she was beautiful.She walked slowly back to where she was tied to the capstan and undid the knots, loosening the rope from her shoulders.The saw the relief cross the girl’s face.“Your sister taught you some Danish, I suppose,”she mused aloud.It was unclear how much she understood.It didn’t seem to be very much.“Thirsty?” she asked.

The girl continued to glare at her.

Ase smiled patiently.She gestured to Brida.“Brida, get some ale.”

Brida looked skeptical but got up and disappeared, returning with a cup.Ase took it.She put it to the girl’s lips, but she turned her head away.Ase shook her head, chuckling. 

“You have to drink,” Ase scolded, “or you’ll die.” 

The girl flung herself against the ropes, struggling for a moment to free her arms.Ase considered her, watching her try to lose her bonds.She passed the ale back to Brida for moment.She put her hand up to the girl, instructing her to wait.She had perfected a knotting style that allowed her to pinion the knot with the “thumb” of her iron hand, working the hitch open with her flesh and bone fingers.After a moment, the ropes slackened, and the girl’s arms were free.The two lads with her remained still, but the girl tried to scramble to her feet and rush at her again.

Ase laughed and caught the girl in her arms.“You are in no shape for a fight,” she said with amusement.“You’re very pretty, but you’re being very silly.”Then firmly, she pushed the girl back down to the deck.Ignoring the girl’s struggles, Ase took the ropes again and tied the girl’s wrists together, and fastened that to the capstan again, so she was restrained once more, but could move her arms.She then tried to place the cup in between the girl’s bound hands so that she could drink for herself.

The girl knocked the cup to the deck.

“Not going to be worth very much if she’s dead before we get home,” Ingrid remarked.

“She’ll drink,” Ase responded, confident.“Right now she’s worried about pissing.But she’ll get thirsty enough, and then she’ll drink.”She got on eye level with the girl, smiling gently at her.“You’re being very foolish, you know.This is very good ale.Frisian.You would like it if you drank.”She stroked her hair, and the girl twitched.

“Pig cocks,” the girl seethed.

“I think it’s the only Danish she knows!” Ingrid laughed.

Ase nodded.“Possible.”She looked in the girl’s eyes. What a spirit.Even now, in her sorry condition, refusing to drink, ready to fight.Even tied up, she’d kicked Harald in the balls.Ase thought.She gestured to herself.“Ase,” she said.She pointed to Ingrid.“Ingrid.”She pointed to Bjorn.“Bjorn.” 

The girl glowered, still.“Harald?” she demanded.

Ase gestured with her iron hand.“He’s gone back to bed.But he’s a _bacraut_.”An asshole.

“ _Bacraut_ ,” the girl repeated.

The crew in immediate earshot chuckled a little. 

Ase pressed on.She pointed to the girl.“And you?What are you called?”

The girl looked at her in rage-filled silence. 

“We are going to be traveling together for a little while, and it would be good to know your name,” Ase said to her, knowing she most likely didn’t understand the words.She pointed to herself again.“I am Ase.”She pointed to the girl, giving her a questioning look.

The girl glared back in silence.

“Ase, you need to work on your approach,” Bjorn joked behind her. “Wooing women is very hard!”

“Especially after you kill their fathers, kidnap them, and tie them up,” Hilde added.

Ase unsheathed her knife and held it against the neck of the dark-skinned lad beside the girl.“I am Ase,” she repeated, still gazing intently at the girl.“And you are?”

The girl still seethed, but had clearly deduced that it was not worth the trouble of continuing to resist giving her name.“Ardith,” she spat at last.She would endanger herself, but not those she led or cared for.Ase respected that kind of honor, even if it was, in its way, a weakness.

“Ardith,” Ase repeated, withdrawing her blade and watching the lad breathe a sigh of relief.“A very pretty name.”She pointed to him.“And him?”

“Jetta,” the girl said.

Ase nodded.She pointed to the other lad.“And him?”

“Wyne.”

The Saxon names sounded exotic to her ears.Ase nodded and smiled.“You see?Now we are friends. I should like to let you free, by and by, but you must behave a bit better.” 

She walked away. 

“Ase,” Bjorn said quietly as they stared out at the open water, “do you really mean to win the girl over?”

“I am not Harald,” she bristled, “who cannot manage to fuck a woman unless she’s at knifepoint.”

“Yes,” Bjorn agreed delicately, “he is not very good at that, but…”He sighed.“…you did kill her father.”

Ase nodded slowly.“That’s so.But she had a sister who was one of us, and there can only be so many ways in which this might happen.If the sister was taken in battle, and came to regard Ardith so much as family that she flung herself at us, her own kind, in Ardith’s defense, then surely there is hope for my cause.”She winked at him.

“But why, Ase?”

“Because I want her.”

She must have said it with more conviction than she had intended, because Bjorn smiled ruefully.“She has thunderstruck you.”

Ase shrugged.“So what?”

Bjorn gestured vaguely.It worried him, clearly.

“Did Hilde not do the same to you?” Ase persisted.“Did she not capture your heart the moment you laid eyes on her and convince you by her every word, her every movement that you must have her?” 

Bjorn grinned, nodding in agreement. “From the moment she kicked me in the balls.”

They laughed a moment.Then Ase grew serious again.“Then you understand that I must have her.”

Bjorn relented. “Yes, I understand.”But he did not seem pleased.

Clearly, the circumstances were not ideal.But Ase had faced many challenges and conquered them.How difficult could a single Saxon girl be?


	15. A Brief Demonstration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pride goes before a fall, and the reopening of wounds.

 

Aguri walked beside Myoge to the dirt-floored training yard where the monastics of the order were performing _kata_.The morning air was chilly, the red leaves of the trees in the gardens splashing bright against the gray sky.The colors of their robes popped in the pale light as their sleeves whirled with each movement, synchronized steps and motions.The memory tugged in her chest, of training her own men, of her own early years of _bushido_ , when her steps were still new.It seemed wrong that this cool, delicate dawn should make her heart sad.

She saw the one from last night, the one called Senkō.Aguri had an eye for skill, having trained and tested so many herself, and she could see that Senkō worked hard, and was ambitious, and one day might be truly excellent.But she could also see that Myoge was correct; Aguri would leave Senkō thoroughly embarrassed if they faced one another, even with Aguri fighting left-handed.

Wataru, the monk that she had been briefly introduced to a few times, was leading this group.He turned and saw them enter, and smiled and bowed to them both.“It is an honor,” he said quietly.He seemed to share a significant look with Myoge, who only smiled in return.

Senkō stepped forward, obviously preparing to face Aguri.But Myoge moved toward her. 

“I will be performing the demonstration,” she told the girl.

Senkō’s brows drew together in a frown.“But I was prepared–” she began to protest.

“Senkō,” Myoge said patiently, “you are not ready to face an opponent of her skill. Even if she is injured, even fighting left handed.”

Senkō’s pride was wounded, clearly.Myoge had predicted that.“But it was my invitation,” she began to complain.

Myoge put a hand on her shoulder.“Wataru agrees with me.You facing Inouye Aguri would not be a demonstration, it would be a humiliation.She will face me.”She looked at the girl, clearly trying to rein in her own impatience. “Return to your place now.”

Senkō looked between Myoge and Wataru, did her best to school her features into something like compliance, and returned to the ranks.

The monastics broke to either side of the yard, leaving room in the middle for Aguri and Myoge to face one another. 

“Due to your injured shoulder,” Myoge said to her as they walked to the center of the yard, “I have chosen _shinai_ for our demonstration.Is that acceptable?”

The monk, Wataru, came to them with a pair of bamboo _shinai_ practice swords the length of her old _wakizashi_ , the shortswords that she still had not seen since she’d found herself here.Aguri nodded, took the training weapon in her left hand, and inspected it.It was simple, but made well enough, the four long bamboo slats of its “blade” bound expertly and tightly with leather fittings.She held it to one side, looked at its length down her arm, gave a few experimental flicks of her wrist.“Yes, this will do,” she agreed.

Myoge was already striding away several paces with her own _shinai_.Aguri had not used one in a very long time. It was light, which meant she would be quick.But Myoge was surely more accustomed to them, having to train postulants and novices at this temple on a regular basis. 

They faced one another.They bowed.

Aguri watched the young nun take her place, calm and rooted in the dirt of the yard.Yet for all her serenity, something in her was like a coiled snake.Sword raised back over her shoulder, free hand forward, palm up, inviting Aguri to attack.Aguri squinted briefly, took a low, loose stance with _shinai_ raised before her, and nodded once.

Aguri preferred to move forward with confidence, striding forward with her blade whirling easily in her hand, clearing her path before her.She was aggressive, but measured, entirely under control, her weapon whistling in the air before her.This approach of relaxed aggression was usually enough to set an opponent back a little, right at the start. Even with her left hand, she had enough dexterity to move this way.

But Myoge simply watched her, waited for her.She held the _shinai_ before her with two hands now, her eyes taking in the whipping arcs of the _shinai_ , seeming to count the split seconds between their strokes.

The purpose of this demonstration was only to show skill.Their _shinai_ could come into contact but they were not meant to strike one another’s bodies.The only wounds suffered in this bout, then, would be those of pride.

Myoge held her ground as Aguri drew closer, weapon twirling in front of her.She was unmoving, fingers curled around the _tsuka_ of her own weapon.Aguri grew annoyed that she was not taking a more defensive posture.Myoge’s eyes found hers and remained locked there, holding her gaze, even as Aguri closed the distance between them. Nothing sounded in the quiet morning now except their breathing.

Aguri stepped close enough to strike, and the ceaseless whirl of her _shinai_ broke, and Aguri’s weapon sliced upwards toward Myoge’s hands.Myoge moved aside at the last moment and danced away, leaving Aguri slicing into air.Their eyes met again.Myoge was smiling.Aguri narrowed her eyes, and made a quick strike to her left, where Myoge again moved just out of reach.Aguri was quick on her feet and with her _shinai_ , but the young nun was irritatingly so.

Aguri knew how to deal with quick fighters, but it was different on the battlefield. It was different when one intended to kill, not demonstrate _how_ to kill.She shook her head once, quickly, and reoriented herself. She planted her feet and held her _shinai_ before her. 

Myoge smiled, edged nearer, seemed to be about to strike, then backed away.Aguri grew frustrated.“Engage me!” she demanded.

Then Myoge came tearing forward all at once, like a roaring wind, and her _shinai_ came arcing in from the right, and Aguri swung hers around from the left to meet it, and their weapons met with a wooden clack.The force was surprising. 

“You’re going to wish you hadn’t asked,” Myoge told her, and leapt lightly away from her again.

They entered into a kind of dance then, Myoge graceful and quick, and stronger than her slender build would suggest.Their _shinai_ whirled and whipped, tapping out staccato beats that were music to their bout.Myoge would switch between using one hand and two hands with her _shinai_ , and Aguri would have to swing a different way.Their feet made little clouds of dust in the early light as they circled, struck, scuffled, danced away.Myoge was maddening; perpetually amused, startlingly accurate, always just out of reach.It took Aguri several minutes of this to realize that the girl was annoying her because she was far better than Aguri had expected her to be, and she was proving difficult to deal with.

“You have yet to land a single blow,” Aguri observed. 

 _Clackclackwhipwhipclack._ They would engage again, then, briefly.

“I could say the same,” Myoge answered tartly. 

_Clackclackwhipwhipclack, whipclackwhipclack, whipwhipwhplack._

Their bamboo _shinai_ clicking and whacking against one another in an irregular rhythm, this time longer.Who could possibly be as good as this?She squinted at Myoge, panting, as they circled a little.Aguri was feeling a little more challenged than normal, and an exhaustion was taking hold of her rather quickly.This nun was too good.“Who are you?” she demanded, as they came at one another, _shinai_ striking and whirling, cracking and swishing.

“You know my name!” Myoge laughed, aiming a jab at Aguri’s inside only to be knocked away.

Aguri came back, slicing at Myoge’s outside only to be blocked, backhand.“But who _are_ you?”

Myoge still smiling, leapt lightly back, then close again.She crouched low, holding the shinai in front of her, darted left, raised it as if to swing overhand, but then switched direction at the last instant and backhanded her blade at Aguri’s waist.Aguri saw the movement too late, twisting her body to block but finding herself with Myoge’s weapon flush next to her waist. 

Myoge murmured softly, “You’re dead.” 

Aguri’s heart pounded.It had been some time indeed since anyone had bested her.She bowed to Myoge, her cheeks burning with an outsized shame.Myoge bowed in response.She turned to Wataru and bowed, and then bowed to both the sections of monks and nuns who had been watching them. Why should this weigh so heavy on her? Just hours ago, she was ready to leave this life and let the _tama_ leave from within her and return to itself and its endless flow. Why should it even matter that she could not defeat the nun? _And I am still healing, and was fighting left-handed,_ she told herself. 

Yet it changed nothing. She could not leave the yard without redeeming herself. 

“I would like to do a brief _iaido_ demonstration, if it would be welcomed,” Aguri said, before she had a moment to contemplate what she was even doing.

She heard Myoge sigh.

 

********

 

_“Is the vanguard ready?” Aguri asked after a long pause._

_Noboru nodded.“I believe so.” But his eyes were hard. He did not want a battle._

_“You believe? Is it, or not?”_

_“It is, wife.”He bristled at the sharp urgency in her tone._

_“Then why are we languishing here over dinner when there is an attack to be mounted, my lord?” The sounds of metal and horses and the smells of cookfires and the striking of wood against wood swirled outside the tent._

_He seemed thrown off his stride by her insistence.He paused, working deliberately on a mouthful of rice ball, and then responded with perfect calm.“Your men await your command.”_

_She looked disdainfully at his food.“Then we must call to arms, my lord husband. It is the only hope of breaking the siege.”_

_He wiped his mouth slowly.“You know, there are simpler ways to end this siege.”_

_“Torii Suneemon hangs on a cross outside, claiming that he has summoned reinforcements. Do you want to wait until there are more Takeda loyalists pushing at our rear flanks?”She gripped his wrist across the table. “I am pleased to fight for you, my lord husband. Now let me do my job.”_

_“You could just burn them out,” Noboru answered. “Burn Himeji to the ground. And then kill them all, down to the last woman and child. And then we do not waste our cavalry.”_

_Disgusted, she said nothing more, and stalked from the tent. “Then you don’t need a general, husband. You need a fool, a catapult, and a brazier.”_

 

*****

 

Aguri was waking up from dreams that careened in between memories of the life she was hiding from.She was on her back, in the little room that had been her home for the last several days, or her prison, depending on how she was feeling at the moment. 

“I told you, Aguri, that your pride would be your undoing,” Myoge said to her wearily.

It was nearly midday, now.What had happened was this:

Wataru had given Aguri a proper _katana_ , and Aguri had stood in the center of the yard, and she had knelt down, stood up, and in one motion, taken the _katana_ from its sheath, slashing through a plum that lobbed through the air toward her, and then placed the _katana_ back in its sheath before the two halves of the plum had hit the ground.She did this a number of times, with various items.

She had felt the heat in her shoulder, felt Myoge’s stitches tear. She knew blood was trickling down the inside of her robe and she gave several more demonstrations before admitting her weariness and begging their pardon so that she might retire.

The task necessarily required a great deal of strength and skill, and Aguri had it.The problem was, this _katana_ was a two-handed weapon, and weilding it had torn Aguri’s shoulder open again. Myoge was patching her up and grumbling under her breath at her as she periodically held a cup of water to Aguri’s lips, trying to get her to drink.

“You had done perfectly respectably in that sparring match,” Myoge scolded. “You would have left the yard with nothing to be ashamed of.But you insisted on doing _iaido_ , so that you could leave to your own satisfaction, when you knew it would tear your shoulder open again.For only your fragile pride!”

Aguri gave Myoge an angry look.“Pride is all I have!” she snapped.

Myoge stopped and looked at her for a moment, genuinely sympathetic. “That’s a choice you made. You think pride is all you have left because you gave up everything else.”She tightened the bandage around Aguri’s shoulder, and then continued.“And much good did it do you.”Myoge gestured around.“Perhaps it’s not as valuable as you think, hm?”

 

*******

 

 

When Konjen Roshi called Myoge to him that evening, she found him sitting on the floor, engaged in _zazen_.She stood at the oor for several long moments, waiting for him to decide he was ready to speak to her.

The room smelled of his favorite incense; sandalwood and something darker, subtle and complex in its perfume. It was his favorite, and had become the smell of calm, and of home, the smell of peace, for as long as she had been at the monastery.Konjen Roshi had helped her find those things when she’d had none. 

Finally, after several minutes of silence, he opened his eyes.He smiled faintly.“Good of you to join me.”

“I might say the same, Roshi,” she responded with a little smirk.

He chuckled. “Too much wit for your own good, Myoge.”

“Just enough, I think.”She was sure that he liked her. He gave her a raised eyebrow and invited her to sit with him.She bowed once, and then sat. “Why did you call me?”

He nodded.“I have a few questions. I heard that you were seen accompanying your charge to the stream last night, and that you had at one point bound her ankles as if for _jigai_ , but then she did not commit _jigai_ , and instead, she came to dinner. This is very unusual. Can you tell me about it?” 

Myoge hesitated. Did she dare share the vision with him? Not once had she concealed things from him during her time with the order. But what if he thought she’d gone mad? “She was prepared, and then… she… Had a vision.In the water.”

Roshi nodded. “I see. Is she given to such things?”

Myoge shook her head. “She is not a woman of great faith, or at least, she is a woman who lost faith some time ago.She says she has never had visions, and I believe her.”

“And what did she see?”

“Herself.Only… different.”

“Then how did she know it was herself?”

Myoge shrugged. “You often recognize people even when they change.Who they are still lives in their eyes.”

Konjen Roshi regarded her with some thought. After a moment, he continued.“So, she had a vision, and felt that it meant she must not commit _jigai_ at this time.So what did you tell her, then?”

“I told her that if she chose not to do the deed, her choices were limited if she wished to keep her honor.I suggested that she join the order.”

He looked mildly surprised.“What did she say?”

“She said she needed to think about it.”

He shook his head, seeming both irritated and amused with her. “You have little reason to trust her, Myoge.”

“I know. But… I believe her presence here is …” She faltered.

“I know, I know.Dharma.”He waved dismissively.“And what of the sparring match?”

“Senkō was stupid and tricked her into accepting.I took Senkō’s place so that she would not embarrass herself.”

“Did you best Inouye Aguri?”

Myoge nodded.“I did.” She was not prideful in this.It had not been a proper match.Myoge knew better than anyone how fresh Aguri’s wounds still were.“Even in her state, it was… difficult.” 

It was so much more than that, though.Often, when one faces a warrior of great reputation, the results are disappointing. Reputations can often be unearned. Myoge found that Aguri’s had been accurate, however.The intricacy of their steps and the interweaving of their breathing and the striking of their shinai had been like music, and Myoge felt a thrill at being so challenged in a way that she had not in some time.

“You sound as if you admire her,” the roshi observed.

Myoge shrugged.“She was very skilled.”

The roshi smiled.“I hope you find her company tolerable, Myoge, because if she chooses to join the order, you will be her teacher.”

Myoge huffed.“I knew you were going to say that.”

“Of course you did.”

He gestured to a piece of calligraphy on a very long piece of paper spread across the floor near him.“Gohonzon.Not as good as Nichiren’s, but it will do.”

The roshi’s calligraphy was masterful, graceful, steady in a way that her own still wasn’t even after all these years of training under him.She nodded.“Beautiful. I hope to attain that level of skill eventually.”

“Well, you’re not yet a Buddha.”He stood, chuckling. “You are doing well, though.”

She took his cue and also rose, adjusting her robes and dusting herself off.“So, if she chooses not to join?”

The roshi’s face became less amused.“Then she cannot stay. This is a monastery, not a hiding place for criminals.”

Myoge frowned, but she bowed, and took her leave.

She couldn’t believe it, but she did want Aguri to stay.She wanted to understand the vision they had shared. She wanted to guide her healing, and show her the meaning of Zen.And she wanted, more than she could properly express, to face her in competition again.The ease, the rapid ebb and flow of their steps, the quickness of their _shinai_ ; those remained in her mind as she walked back to the rooms. 

They provoked a curious tugging in her chest. 


	16. Glory, Glory, Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earlier that evening, Alex struggles with getting Kara free from the Black Mercy...

“We all know that rainbows are temporary optical illusions based on the factors of sunlight, moisture, and heat. The environment creates each rainbow like the mind creates a self. Both creations are relatively real, in that we can genuinely experience them temporarily; but just as the factors that created the illusion (whether rainbow or self) arose, so will they also pass. There is no permanent self; there is no permanent rainbow. It is not true to say that there is no self at all or that everything is empty or illusory, but it is true that everything is constantly changing and that there is no solid, permanent, unchanging self within the process that is life. Everything and everyone is an unfolding process.” 

_—_

| 

_Noah Levine_  
  
---|---  
  
 

Alex stormed from the lab and down the long, dim corridor.Vasquez jogged up behind her, barely keeping up.“Ma’am,” she panted.“I hate being useless.Please, tell me what I can do to help.”

Alex recognized the difference in Susan Vasquez’s tone when she was asking that as a friend and not a subordinate looking to be put to good use.“Suz,” she answered brusquely, not breaking her stride in the least, “I’m feeling pretty fucking useless myself. I wish I knew what to tell you. Just go back to the war room.”

Vasquez wasn’t about to be brushed off that easily.“Ma’am,” she said again, and this time she put her hand on Alex’s shoulder.Alex stopped moving.“You nearly had it last time, didn’t you? That’s what I heard from Singh, anyway.”

“‘Nearly’ doesn’t get Supergirl out of that coma,” Alex snapped. They paused in the middle of the corridor and looked at each other.Alex was almost angry at her, but she took a deep breath, found her center again, and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.Sorry.”

Vasquez shrugged.“No worries.Just want to make sure you’re alright.I just know how much she means to you.”

Alex nodded.It had always been hard when it came to her sister.The responsibility of protecting her had always rested so heavy on her shoulders.It was why she got a PhD, it was why she joined the DEO, it was why (she thought) she had never really had a serious relationship, it was why she used to drink too much, and it was why, ultimately, she’d gotten sober and found Zen.Because an Alex Danvers that was a hot mess was not an Alex Danvers who could be any good to Kara when she was needed the most.“I mean, I’ve tried a million things, Suz.I even talked to my mom.We’ve got nothing.” Eliza Danvers was one of the country’s foremost exobiologists; if even she was stumped, it was a bad sign.

Vasquez shrugged.“Well, maybe you’re asking the wrong mom?”

Alex nodded slowly.“Yeah,” she agreed.“Maybe I am.”

 

*****

 

Alex entered the dim, blue-lit AI chamber.Kara had gotten into coming here lately, because even though the hologram of her mother contained little of Alura’s personality, it was a distant replication of being able to still see her.For Alex, it was a semblance of being able to touch the world that her sister had come from, and know a piece of the family that produced her.She rarely visited it without Kara, feeling that it wasn’t hers to engage with, but today was a day for breaking rules, written or unwritten.

The DEO had managed to rescue an assortment of technology from the pod that Kara had arrived in; this hologram of Alura Zor-El may have lacked Alura’s personality, but it was programmed with petabytes of her knowledge; of family events, of science, of Kryptonian law and history.The science was Alex’s primary interest today. 

She touched a glowing panel and called forth the projection of Kara’s mother.“I’m sorry to come here without Kara,” she began, feeling absurd but needing to apologize anyway.“She’s in trouble, and I’m hoping you can help.”

The hologram gave Alex the familiar vacant look. “How can I help?”

Alex launched into an explanation of how she’d arrived at Kara’s apartment and found her unconscious, with a plant attached to her that would not be removed.How she’d tried everything, and nothing was working.How she didn’t know what it was or how to mitigate its effects.

She knew that she was imagining a hint of regret in Alura’s eyes when the AI answered, “I’m sorry.I do not have that information.”

Alex’s eyes welled up.“Please.You have to know _something_.Anything.” 

“I’m sorry.I do not have that information.” 

Alex leaned forward on the console, fighting tears.“When I was a kid, I used to be afraid of the water.Never knew why.But Kara was the one who convinced me I should learn to surf to get over that fear.And she promised me that she’d keep me safe until I was confident enough to do it without her.And wouldn’t you know it, but she did have to pull me out of the water a few times when I fell off my board and thought I was going to die.I resented being stuck taking care of her when I was a kid, but she takes care of me too.I love her more than anyone else on this earth.”She gave in and let herself weep a little.“Haven’t you ever seen anything like the plant I described?” she pleaded.

“I am sorry,” the AI said again.“I have no data on any plant that resembles this.”

Alex wiped her eyes.A thought occurred.“What about … what about your sister?”

The AI seemed to be processing the question.“My sister.Astra.What is your question?”

“Would she know anything about a plant like this?”

“It is statistically possible.She had traveled far more than I and encountered many things that were used for military applications that I may not have had contact with.”

Alex’s hopes were lifted, though not by much.She took a deep breath.“Would Astra help me to save Kara?Even under circumstances in which they were … not on good terms?”

“Statistically possible. Difficult to guarantee based on too many unknown variables.” 

“Was Astra…”Alex frowned.She didn’t know what she was trying to ask.“Was she a compassionate person?”

“She was a fractured soul,” the AI responded.“She was capable of great kindness and love, but also a pragmatism that often seemed heartless.She was a warrior, but also a poet.She was brave.She married a man that she chose, because there was no-one in the codex for her.”

Alex thought for a moment.“A poet, did you say?”

“Yes.”

“What… what kind of poetry?”

The AI, staring blankly into the space near Alex, paused, accessing its memories.“This one, I saved.I have no other records.The translation is … imperfect.”She began to speak.

 

_“I rained flame, many times, once by force of will,_

_And many more by force of habit._

_The first time,_

_The snows flung out of the black sky,_

_And melted in the air, thick and hot with smoke_

_And the flames of men’s souls._

 

_But Argo was in my heart, and_

_We persevered._

_I needed no Nightwing at my back._

_We were victorious._

 

_Love comes at too dear a price_

_No child’s golden head sighing to sleep_

_On my aching chest,_

_No hearth to call mine._

_No creature in the universe_

_Engineered to fit me perfectly,_

_In body well-made, in mind well-tempered,_

_No path already beaten for me._

 

_Only the wars that I must win,_

_The flames that curl and and lick_

_Inside the magma caves of my soul,_

_And the need,_

_The hunger,_

_The voice that whispers over and again:_

_Glory. Glory. Glory.”_

 

Alex nodded thoughtfully.She recognized, she thought, a familiar longing in those lines.She was surprised that Astra had been a poet once, but not surprised that she had been good at it.She spent a moment scrolling through Astra’s service record again: a fast rise, battles won, marksmanship awards, master level in seven different fighting styles.And then in Fort Rozz, wresting control of a floating prison filled with the worst scum of the galaxy and bending them to her will, whipping them into an army.Alex knew something about people who had something to prove, and she knew an overachiever when she saw one. Of course Astra would become the best at everything she touched.

She opened a comlink to J’onn.“Hey, I’ve been thinking… maybe we should reach out to Astra for help with this thing.”

She heard J’onn’s skeptical tone.“I’m not sure we want her help.For all we know, she may have done this.”

“I’m not convinced,” Alex pressed.“Look, if I’m wrong I’m wrong, but I think we should have Vasquez try and locate the Fort Rozz signal and reach out to Astra.I don’t believe she wants to hurt Kara.Kara means too much to her. Family… means too much to her.”

J’onn sighed.“We’ve tried this before, Agent Danvers.”

“Yeah, but we have more information now. Vasquez can try it.She’s the best we’ve got for that kind of thing.” 

“Alright.”The link remained open, but silence filled the small room.“One condition, though.”

“Of course.”

“You’ve been here for three days solid, Agent.Get out of here, go meditate, hit the waves, whatever, but clear your head, and we’ll continue to work the problem in your absence.”

“Sir, I’m not going surfing at a time like this.”

“I don’t care what you do,” he retorted, “but you need to step away from this for a few hours and refresh. Unless you feel that the rest of us are not capable of handling whatever may arise in your brief absence?”

Alex flushed.“No, of course not, sir.”

“Good.”

“And sir?”

“Yes?”

“If you haven’t already, I’d like to request that cache of Kryptonite weapons from the Washington armory. Just … just in case.”

“You know I already have,” he said dryly. “Now get the hell out of here.”

 

*******

 

Alex felt the stiffness in her muscles start to melt away as she paddled out into the water.She had never known why she’d feared the ocean, but she had conquered it, with Kara’s help.For a long time, even after she’d gotten comfortable in the water, she’d still have that moment of anxiousness as she first bobbed out into the surf.She didn’t have that any more, but her nerves still carried an echo of it: _here is the moment where I used to panic, where I used to think, I don’t want to die at sea._

The water was cold, and it washed several days’ worth of sweat and anger and tension off of her.She felt lighter almost immediately.Her balance was a little off today, unsurprisingly, so she wiped out a couple of times before she found her center and got herself a long, mellow point break that she rode until it dissolved away, spilling out until it became part of the ocean again.She felt better already. 

She paddled a little farther out in search of another swell, crouched up onto her longboard, and propelled herself into a wave that was growing into something gentle and long, and followed it.She muttered the sutras under her breath, looking for that elusive moment when she and the wave just _were_.She mumbled the constructions of the Kryptonian endocrine systems to herself, not considering them, merely knowing them, speaking them, enumerating their complexities and letting them pass through her as the blue-green of the wave curled around her like living glass, and she was alone with it, and the water, and the board under her feet, and the foam, and her own voice, its steady murmur washing her clean of thought as surely as the water was.

The world breathed in.

Under a clean stretch of sky, she was free, for a moment.

She was engaged in a delicate dance with the wave, one that was natural and thoughtless, formless and weightless.She was carried along on it, only vaguely aware that the trough of the wave she was in was moving toward the crest of another, and that she needed to break out of it in order to avoid having to surf a double-up. 

She swore under her breath.

The moment was over.She was about to find herself inside of a wave that was very big and very hollow, that could toss her around like a skipping stone if she didn’t take care. She leaned over to pull herself out of the wave and bank toward the shore, and as she did, everything that had made J’onn push her out onto the waves came rushing into her head again.She hoped that Vasquez had made headway on tracking the Fort Rozz signal.

“Come on, Astra,” she muttered.“She needs you.”

 

 

*******

 

Several miles above the ocean, Astra studied the object of her curiosity.What was the purpose of this activity?What were the prayers she was muttering?And then the science? _Curious,_ she thought.

The air up where she hovered was thin but it meant nothing to her.Her focus was singular, trained upon the human.The uncertainty in her heart was not a familiar or pleasant feeling. For once, she wished that she held with her old faith, that there was a god who would impart a sign to her, and show her with clarity and purpose what her move needed to be next.

And then, she heard the human’s voice. _Come on, Astra. She needs you._

She held still in the sky for a long time after that.She watched the human pass through the waves a few more times before heading back to the shore and making for her vehicle.Never had she asked for a sign and been given one.Surely it was coincidence.

But then, if the old faith was to be believed, there was no such thing.


	17. And My Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ardith and her friends find their feet. Ardith gets a second chance.

It took perhaps half a day for Ardith to take the cup of ale that was repeatedly offered to her.Wyne and Jetta had not been offered any.Eventually thirst won out over pride and anger, as they moved through the straits and onto the open ocean.She wondered how long they would be at sea.

The crew had chuckled when Ase had taught her the word _bacraut_.She felt sure she’d heard that one from Caja but didn’t remember what it meant. From context, she guessed it was an insult, and probably a vulgar one.She heard it thrown around among the deck hands as they set to their tasks.

“Wyne,” she muttered, as the sun grew high and her thirst began to make itself known, “how many do you suppose might sleep below deck?”

Wyne sighed.“Don’t know.I expect they pack in, one next to the other. Twenty perhaps? Maybe a few more?”

The winds had picked up, and the great red sail was full.The oarsmen had left their stations.Ardith counted about twenty on deck.“Two watches, do you reckon?Or three?”

He glanced around.“If you mean do they have enough men to run three watches, I think not.” He squinted at her.“What are you up to?”

She shook her head.“Don’t know yet.Trying to find my feet is all.Trying to work out how many we took down back there, how many we’re dealing with here, how they move, what they do.What we’ve got to work with.” She licked her dry lips.They tasted of salt.Her tongue puckered.“By Freya, if that bitch offers me ale again I’m going to take it.”

“I suppose you should.You’re no good to us dead, Ardith.What will Jetta and I do if you let yourself die of thirst?”

“Dunno, Wyne.That big blonde fellow over there had his eye on you earlier.”

Wyne snorted.

“He looks like he could be quite a gentle lover.”

And for the first time since they’d found themselves on this ship, they smiled at each other.Wan and weak, but they smiled. 

Jetta, who had been nodding beside them, awoke and twisted his neck a bit to get a look at Ardith. “We dead yet?”

“Not as such,” Ardith responded.

“So you save our skins yet, then?”

“Not as such.That’s going to take a moment.” She looked at him.Beneath the warm brown of his skin, he looked slightly ashen.“Are you alright?”

He offered a weak smile.“I don’t much care for this ‘being on a boat’ business.”

“You mean because that sort of thing hasn’t gone well for your people?”

“I mean because this sort of thing isn’t going well for my stomach.”

Ardith found, at least at the moment, that she had somewhat adjusted to the gentle pitching of the boat on the waves.“What about you, Wyne?”

He shook his head.“Holding steady.”

One of Ase’s shield maidens, the one she knew as Brida, came over then with a cup of ale.Warily, Ardith took it between her hands.Her wrists were still bound together and the ropes chafed against her skin.She took a sip.The temperature was roughly that of warm spit, but it was wet, and she was thirsty, and tasted light and crisp.It was not bad ale.

“Did she piss in the cup?” Jetta joked weakly.

Ardith shook her head.“Not unless she pisses ale.”

She took another sip and then noticed Wyne’s dry, cracked lips, and so with a bit of struggle, she put the cup to his lips and let him sip.She was aware of Brida watching her, but she continued.Wyne looked as grateful for a drink as she felt.She gave some to Jetta then. A few more sips among the three of them, and the cup was drained.

“You reckon they’re taking us all the way back to their home?” Jetta wondered.

Ardith shrugged.“Don’t know. Could be they mean to sell us to Frisians.”

“Not likely,” Wyne said. “I think they do more raiding than trading with the Frisians.”

“Ship this size,” Ardith mused, “probably doesn’t need to stop for a while.No real reason to pull ashore anywhere.So likely no escape along the Frisian coast.Means we’ll have to figure a way off sooner, or commandeer the ship if we want to get home.” 

Jetta snorted.“And how do you mean to do that?We are three, and they are forty.Also, we are tied up.” 

“I noticed,” Ardith answered dryly. 

She ran over the options in her mind.If the Danes intended to sell them as slaves, they wouldn’t want them too malnourished.They could refuse food until the Danes released them from their bonds, perhaps.And then… and then what? Ardith wasn’t sure.On the open sea, they’d be back to two watches, half the crew asleep inside the tent and half on deck.Even if they weren’t tied to a barrel, they’d still be watched, so it wasn’t as if quietly slitting the throats of the sleeping watch was much of an option.

Still, they weren’t going to accomplish much tied up to this barrel.The first step, then, to Ardith’s mind, was getting the Danes to untie them. 

“Wish you knew more Danish,” Wyne grumbled.“It would be so helpful to have Caja here.”

“On a boat full of Danes?” Ardith demanded, bristling. “It’s but for the grace of Woden that the lot of us haven’t been raped yet.”

A chastened look crossed Wyne’s face, followed by something closer to existential dread. 

Ardith looked up at Ase, who was standing near the tent, talking with the one called Ingrid.Ase kept glancing at her, a wolfish looking crossing her features from time to time.Ardith burned with anger.What was she so pleased about? Just the fact of having taken some Saxons? She recalled how Ase drove Harald off of her, having heard her utter the word _Mine_.Did she mean to make some other awful sport of her?Ardith shuddered.She had heard tell of how brutish these Danes could be. 

 

****

 

It was two hours later when she summoned another useful Danish word from her memories.Useful was perhaps an understatement.It was becoming rather urgent, actually: _pisse_.

She half considered just going where she sat, but she wanted to see if they would untie her for that purpose.She flagged down the one she knew as Bjorn, and gave him a plaintive look, raising her bound hands in supplication.“ _Pisse?_ ” she asked hopefully.

The big Dane chuckled and walked away. 

“Well, so much for that,” she sighed.

A moment later, Ase appeared.She gazed down at Ardith for a moment.“ _Pisse?_ ” she inquired.

Ardith nodded.

Ase crouched down, undid her bonds, and then took her firmly by the arm.She muttered something in Danish and pulled her along toward the stern of the boat.Ardith fought a rising panic as she was dragged along a little faster than her stiffened legs could manage. 

They passed a large pair of black wooden ravens.For Woden’s goodwill, Ardith guessed.Or Odin, as the Danes called him. They stopped at the back of the boat.Ase produced a vaguely smelly bucket, set it on the deck, and gestured to Ardith to go ahead. 

There were deck hands milling everywhere, tying lines, working the yard.Ardith shook her head.She had no desire to drop her breeches and piss in a bucket with a bunch of deck hands about.Ase sighed irritably and pointed to the bucket again.Some of the other Danes nearby were quietly chuckling at the spectacle. 

“I don’t want to piss in front of you lot,” Ardith was protesting, knowing that they understood not a word of it. 

“ _Gå og gør det_!” Ase commanded, stamping her foot with impatience.

Ardith’s brow furrowed.Her cheeks flushed.She couldn’t really wait much longer and didn’t want to, but she was going to have to, she supposed.Slowly, she began unlacing her breeches.

A look of recognition crossed Ase’s face, then.She barked something at the Danes who were watching, and they laughed a little, and then all turned their backs and became suddenly very absorbed in their tasks.She pointed again to the bucket.“ _Gør det_ ,” she said again, a bit less angrily this time.

Ardith’s blush deepened.Ase sighed with annoyance, shook her head, and muttering to herself in Danish, she turned her back.

Ardith got about her business as quickly as possible, unlacing her breeches and squatting over the bucket.The ship was noisy enough, and the wind rumbled in her ears, and she could barely hear the sound of it hitting the bucket.She stood up hastily and with fumbling fingers, put herself back together.Ase turned around, gestured to the bucket and then to the water on the other side of the gunwale, and Ardith took her meaning.She picked up the bucket and dumped its contents over the side.

Realizing that if she was uncomfortable, that Wyne and Jetta probably were as well, she mustered whatever pride she could, and pointed back toward the bow of the ship where her friends were tied up.“And my friends?”

Ase shrugged, not taking her meaning at first, or pretending not to. 

Ardith persisted.“Wyne and Jetta,” she pressed.“My friends.”She poked around in her mind.She could not, to save her soul, come up with the Danish word for friends, so reached for the next best thing she could remember, which was “brothers.”“ _Mine brødre?_ ” 

Ase chuckled at this.Wyne could have passed for Ardith’s brother, but Jetta certainly could not.Nevertheless, she nodded, and they walked back toward the bow of the ship.Ardith stood there by the barrel uncertainly, waiting for Ase to retie her, but this was not forthcoming.Two oarsmen came and released Wyne and Jetta, and guided them over to the edge of the ship to piss over the side.Ardith stood there awkwardly watching their backs, wondering what was next.

She was not expecting to feel the dull sting of wood strike her across the shoulder blades.

 

 

*****

 

Ase knew that this wasn’t fair.She was curious though, as to whether the girl still had fight left in her after what she clearly perceived as an indignity.She had guts enough to still care for her friends, or her “brothers” as she’d called them.So, Ase had taken a wooden sword, and struck her across the back with it.Not hard, really.Just to startle her.

Ardith wheeled on her, eyes blazing, hands balled up into fists.Ase grinned at her.“Look, Bjorn,” she called with satisfaction, never looking away.“She still wants to fight!”

Bjorn gave a long-suffering sigh.“Perhaps you should let her,” he suggested sarcastically.

“That,” Ase decided, “is a very good idea, Bjorn!” She held the wooden sword out to Ardith.They had a few around on board, so that the men and women of the crew could spar without hurting each other when things were slow. 

The girl looked at her with suspicion and confusion.

“Go ahead,” Ase urged, continuing to offer it.“Let’s see if you’ve still got that fight in you.Don’t worry, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“She doesn’t understand you,” Ingrid reminded her in a bored tone.

Ase wasn’t convinced that this was entirely so.The girl managed a word or two of Danish here or there.But more than that, they had seemed to understand one another somewhat, despite little to no shared language.No, Ase was not convinced at all.“Not the words, perhaps, but she takes my meaning well enough.” 

Ase dropped the wooden sword onto the deck with a clatter.It lay between them.“Go on,” Ase said again.She understood of course.The girl no doubt expected a trick, a trap.She couldn’t be expected to know that this was, strictly speaking, only for the pleasure of it.

“Give me another,” Ase commanded, and Hilde appeared at her side a moment later with another wooden sword.She gripped it, raised it before her.“Now, Ardith. Let’s see you go, hm?”

But Ardith refused to take up the wooden sword. She glared at her with suspicion, and no small amount of defiance.

Ase flicked at Ardith’s shoulder with the flat of her wooden sword.The girl winced.Ase knew it wasn’t enough to inflict much real pain, but it would make her angry.“Go on, Ardith.”She saw the girl flinch a little at the sound of her own name.She stepped closer and flicked at her other shoulder.Ardith shuffled back a little, too proud to nurse the place that Ase knew had to be stinging a bit.“No? Don’t tell me you’ve lost your spirit already!” she teased. She drew back in an exaggerated manner. 

Ardith ducked down, lunged for the wooden sword on the deck, and raised it above her head to block Ase’s blow.

“Good!” Ase exclaimed.She backed off a few steps, letting Ardith scramble to her feet.Her cheeks were flushed again, but this time it was anger.She beckoned to the girl with her iron hand.“Come on!”

The girl looked exhausted.As well she should be, of course.She’d led a pitched battle, fought bravely hand to hand with Ase herself, and had spent the better part of a full day tied to a barrel, thirsty, probably hungry, and needing to piss.

“You look a little tired,” she remarked.

The girl spat something back in English which Ase didn’t understand.She shrugged, smiling.She stepped in and swung a few times, allowing Ardith to block her, and then stepped back. 

“I know you’re a bit tired,” Ase said genially, “but surely you can do better than that.What would your sister say?”

Clearly, the girl knew the word “sister,” because she saw a fury light in the girl’s eyes again and she came at her, swinging with new vigor.Ase allowed herself to be momentarily pushed back. It was alright. She knew the girl would pay for such an expenditure of her strength.And so a blow came, and then another, and then another, and Ase stepped back a little each time, blocking with her wooden sword and the loud clacking sounds it made.She was strong, for a girl with such a slender frame, Ase thought. 

Ardith came in with a wide swing, and Ase caught the wooden sword on her iron hand and slapped lightly at Ardith’s side with the wooden sword.She winced and stumbled back, eyes still blazing.Ase took her moment and pursued further, stepping in to swing again, and then again.She pushed the girl back to where they had initially been standing, right in front of the barrel.

She was aware of Ardith’s “brothers”, who had finished their business and were now watching with visible panic.

But Ardith was only focused on Ase, and Ase loved being the focus of her gaze.She stepped in and took another swing, and Ardith, even in her weakened condition, was quick enough to duck beneath it and scramble past her.Ase spun around and saw her stumble, regain her balance, and straighten up, holding the wooden sword before her.She said something in English Ase didn’t understand but it was a taunt, judging by the tone.

“You haven’t fought enough battles to know that you need to adjust for your weakness,” Ase scolded cheerfully.

Ardith stepped toward her again, taking a few measured swings.Ase blocked them easily, but stepped back nonetheless.She wanted Ardith to feel that she was doing well.And truly, she was.She simply wasn’t a warrior and didn’t know the limits of her capabilities. 

Ardith swung.“Pig cocks,” she panted as her sword struck Ase’s.

Ase laughed.

Ardith swung again.“Asshole,” she grunted.

Ase blocked her again.She was pleased that Ardith had remembered the word she’d been taught.

Ingrid laughed.“Well at least she knows the important words.”

Ardith came toward her with another burst of aggression, and Ase stood ready.They ended up with their wooden swords locked together, just as their steels had been locked together in the marsh.Ase was impressed to note that her attempts to shift their balance in order to swing the pommel around to catch Ardith in the head were not successful.Ardith was responding to her every change of balance, weight and position.She was a quick learner.The tactic would not work on her again.

So Ase jammed a knee into Ardith’s stomach and sent her stumbling back.Clearly, she didn’t have much left for this.But she had a pleased little smirk, as if she enjoyed the fact that she had managed not to be taken by the same trick that had gotten her before.

Ardith came running at her then, aiming a large cut at at Ase’s left side.Ase was surprised by the burst of aggression, and took a stinging blow to the thigh as a result.But the swing left Ardith’s side open, and Ase struck at her ribs, sending her stumbling back yet again. 

The girl glared at her, defiant.Ase knew she was exhausted and hurt, so she stood fast, holding the wooden sword before her, letting the girl get her bearings.She saw the same look of suspicion at Ase’s failure to advance on her.But Ardith raised her wooden sword and prepared to face her again.

“She’s beautiful when she’s angry, isn’t she,” Ase declared to nobody in particular.

“Give her a break, Ase,” Bjorn advised wearily. 

But before Ase could respond, Ardith made an aggressive beat toward her.She had little sense of how her exhaustion and pain were slowing her though, and Ase easily stepped aside and elbowed her in the back as she staggered past.

Still, to her credit, the girl spun around quickly enough, and her sword was there, waiting to block the blow that Ase delivered.She was exhausted, probably in some pain, but still unbent.Marvelous.

They exchanged another flurry of clacking blows, turning slowly in the space near the bow.Ase almost felt badly when Ardith left herself open on the outside again, and Ase struck her in the ribs with the pommel of her sword again.Ardith lurched back, turning, and grabbed onto the gunwale in order to avoid hitting the deck.Ase aimed a blow at where she stood, but Ardith staggered to the right, and Ase’s sword only struck wood.

“Enough already,” Ase said as the girl scrambled to her feet again. She aimed a blow at the girl’s chest.She blocked.Ase could see the effort it took.She held her sword out to the side.“Look, let’s be done, hm? You’ve done too much.”But Ardith swung at her again, and she barely blocked in time.“Alright,” she sighed.“If you must.”

She swung again and again, slow and measured.Each step that she took forward, she took a cut at the girl, and each time the girl blocked, it was clear that it was becoming heavier and more difficult.“Isuppose it could not be any other way,” Ase mused as she advanced.

Finally, a last blow sent Ardith collapsing to the deck.Sheer exhaustion had set in.She had pushed herself past her limits. 

Ingrid snorted.“What did you think would happen?”

Ase shrugged.She knelt down and took Ardith around the waist.Ardith mounted a weak resistance and Ase simply said, “Ssh.”She helped her back over to the barrel, and bound her wrists. 

Surely she could make Ardith understand how beautiful she was with a weapon in hand.

 

***

 

The weariness ached in Ardith’s bones.Why did the woman insist upon toying with her in such a way?She could not comprehend the joy that Ase took in what had just occurred. 

She watched, half outside her own body, as Ase bound her wrists together again and tied her back to the barrel.One of the other crew set back to tying Wyne and Jetta again, the same as they had been before; backs to the wood, ropes around their arms and chests.

“ _Nej,_ ” Ardith objected.She held up her hands.“Like this, please.”

The Dane paused, asking something of the others.He had a brief back and forth with Ase in which she instructed him, and the Dane then tied Wyne and Jetta as Ardith was tied.Ase had understood what she wanted.A moment later, Ase came and knelt in front of her, and gave her a cup.Ardith took it without protest.She sipped.It was good, sweet honey mead.She held her gaze even with Ase, and asked, “ _Mine brødre?”_

Ase chuckled, and gestured to one of the crew, and two more cups appeared and were placed in the hands of Ardith’s friends.She ached from head to toe, but she would not have anything that her friends could not have also. 

“You held forth,” Wyne assured her.

Ardith groaned a little for answer.

And then Hilde lit a torch.Night was falling.


	18. In The Boughs of the White Pine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noboru's retainers show up looking for Aguri.

 

It was morning when the retainers came through the gates.

Myoge had spent the previous day caring for Aguri, and occasionally pressing her to make her decision.Aguri was weak, though Myoge suspected not as weak as she made out to be, and was recalcitrant at Myoge’s attempts to convince her to commit herself. 

She was now out in the gardens in front of the temple, admiring Suzue’s work, when she heard their horses’ hooves thudding up the mountain.She looked up in alarm.“Suzue,” she said urgently, “go to Aguri’s room and move her to the laundry, please.” 

Suzue frowned, but nodded and jogged away.Myoge took up a rake and walked to meet them as they entered.Six of them, in bamboo armor bearing Noboru’s colors, on horseback, armed with _katana_ , _wakizashi_ , and _naginata_.She bowed in greeting. 

The leader of the retinue looked at her and spoke. “We serve Lord Yorihime Noboru. We’re looking for his wife.”

Myoge shrugged unhelpfully. “I’m sorry, samurai, but surely you know that she would not be welcome in a place like this.”

He squinted at her and glanced around.“You haven’t seen her, then?”

Myoge shook her head.“Your lord is not a merciful man, _samurai_ , and as you know, the heart of Buddhism is compassion. His chief enforcer would not be welcome here.”She lifted her chin now, and looked him over.He was big, and armed, but she could take him if it came to that. She was rather hoping it wouldn’t.“Why would you think she was here?”

“Because some of the folk in town said they saw her set off toward the mountains.There are few places she could have gone other than this.”

“Perhaps she was eaten by a bear.”Her gaze remained level and calm. “She’s not here.”

The samurai was unsatisfied.“Mind if we have a look around?”

“Why? To see if Inouye Aguri, Noboru’s Claw, is in the kitchen, slicing _konnyaku_?”

He sighed irritably. “I can’t go back to my master and tell him we didn’t search the grounds.Don’t give me trouble, woman. I don’t want to have to do this the hard way.”

“That makes both of us,” she replied.She gestured to them to dismount, and some monks came and tied up their horses.“Follow me.” 

She led them through the dormitories first, and found them cooperative enough when it came to allowing her to open all doors ahead of them.She came to Aguri’s room, and holding her breath, drew the screen aside.The bed was empty.She held the sigh of relief in her chest. It would not do to give anything away.

She led them around the gardens, then out behind the back of the temple.One of them asked to search the temple, but she insisted that they disarm first.So they did, leaving their weapons outside.Just getting them all off was an undertaking that took some time.They entered, wandered around, didn’t see Aguri, and left.After re-arming themselves, she led them through the rest of the grounds, through the kitchen, and past the laundry.

“What’s that building?” one of them wanted to know.

“It’s the laundry.Would you like to see if Inouye Aguri is washing her underwear?”

But the lead samurai ignored her sarcasm and directed them over to the small building with steam rolling out of the windows.Myoge held her breath and opened the door.She peered inside.There were a number of nuns and a couple of monks in there, doing the temple’s washing.No sign of Aguri.Myoge wondered what Suzue had ended up doing with her.

The leader of the retinue grunted, then said, “Alright.She’s a criminal now, you know.”

“Is that right?” Myoge asked disinterestedly.

“It’s true. If you see her, don’t try to do anything yourself, but send word to Lord Noboru.You’ll be rewarded.”

Myoge smiled beatifically. “Well, as you can see, _samurai_ , we want for very little here.However, we don’t harbor criminals, I can assure you of that.”

The leader grunted again, waved his men back onto their horses, and left.Myoge did not breathe until their backs had disappeared among the trees.

She looked around.It was too close. She started walking toward the dormitories where the monks lived.She encountered Suzue, who was looking a little frantic.“Suzue, where is Aguri?”

Suzue shook her head.“I don’t know! She wasn’t in her room when I went to get her.”

Myoge groaned.“Go see if you can find Wataru to help you look.Tell no-one else.We don’t need a panic yet!” 

Suzue nodded and ran off to look for Wataru.

Myoge stood where she was, rubbing her temples for several moments, trying to imagine where Aguri might hide when she barely knew the grounds. She had only been to the courtyard, the dining room, and the stream behind the temple where they had gone for her _jigai_.The stream… the white pine…

Myoge broke into a run, sprinting barefoot through the gardens, past the temple and out to the rear of it, across the grass to the stream.“Aguri!” she called.She jogged up to the foot of the pine tree and looked up into its dense green branches.Surely enough, Aguri had climbed up into them, and sat several feet up, her robes caught on its prickly boughs, and Myoge could see the blood seeping through on her shoulder.“Stupid _ronin!_ What are you doing up there?” she called up to her.Myoge was aware of her heart pounding, panic subsiding in her chest.

Aguri was trembling and pale.“I could not have fought those retainers in my current condition.”

“I know that,” Myoge said, trying to modulate her tone to one of patience.She sighed.“Did you think I would have given you up to them?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Aguri sat, hanging onto a branch with each hand. “I am not your problem, after all.”

Myoge sighed again.“I wish that were true. But you and I still have business.” She looked up at her figure in the tree. “Can you climb down?”

Aguri hesitated.“I don’t know.I’m a little afraid to let go of these branches.”Shame colored her cheeks.

Myoge sighed.Still barefoot, she climbed into the tree and remained a little below Aguri, so that Aguri could release the branch from her grasp and take hold of her shoulder.The bark was rough on her hands and feet, and the sap crusted on her palms as she guided them both back down through the branches to the solid ground.When they were standing on the grass, Aguri momentarily collapsed against her.Myoge supported her weight.

“You had me worried,” she scolded.“Stupid _ronin_ , running off like that and ripping open your wound _again_.”

“What… would you have had me do?” Aguri’s voice was weak.

Myoge kept hold of Aguri’s waist as she leaned heavily on her.“The minute I saw Noboru’s retainers, I sent Suzue to your room to bring you someplace safe to hide.Someplace,” she added irritably, “that would not have involved you climbing into a tree and tearing yourself open.”She shook her head. 

“What did you tell them?”

Myoge huffed.“What do you think I told them?That I hadn’t seen you.That you would not be welcome here.”

Aguri chuckled bitterly.“Well, I’m not, am I?”

Myoge agreed.“Inouye Aguri?No, she would not be welcome here.”Still carefully holding onto the older woman’s waist, she drew back and looked steadily at her.“But I’m not so sure you still _are_ Inouye Aguri.Or at least, I’m not sure that you want to be.”

Aguri looked stricken at this, in a way that told Myoge that she had hit some truth.

“I have protected you now,” Myoge told her earnestly. “This means that you owe the order a debt. If you join, then you will be given a new name.You will no longer be Inouye Aguri.If Yorihime Noboru sends more men, we will not have to lie when they ask us if Inouye Aguri is here. Because she won’t be.”

Aguri frowned.“So your name was not always Myoge,” she concluded after a moment.

“No.”

“What was it?”

Myoge didn’t answer.She looked for a long moment at the pale, bedraggled, wounded Aguri with pine needles stuck in her hair and blood on the shoulder of her torn robe.“You need a bath,” she decided.

 

*****

 

Aguri still leaned heavily against Myoge as they staggered up to the rear of the temple.“In there?” Aguri wanted to know.

“Yes.A hot spring flows here.It warms the bath in the back of the temple.” 

Aguri was tired and her legs trembled, still.They shuffled into the chamber in the temple and Myoge sat her down on a bench and spent a few moments preparing herbs and dropping them into a large square tub with high sides set into the middle of the room.She stirred the bath with her hands for a few moments until a sweet, green fragrance arose from the water.Then she lit some incense. 

Aguri recognized it as a stronger manifestation of the scent that seemed to always linger around Myoge, that warm scent of sandalwood and other notes that even she, accomplished as she was at the refined art of incense appreciation, struggled to identify. 

Myoge looked at her, then took her hands and helped her to her feet.“We will need to get you out of that,” she said gently, gesturing at the robe.

“Good,” Aguri answered, “I don’t like it anyway.”

Myoge smirked at her.But Aguri, though she was weary and hurting, cooperated.Myoge bent down, carefully undid the sash at Aguri’s waist, and then with even greater care, slid her arms out of one sleeve, and then the other, finally lifting it from her body completely. With similar care, she also removed the under-robe.She folded both carefully and placed them on the bench. 

Aguri held still and stood with hands clasped before her as Myoge’s hands, still gentle, liberated her from her _susoyoke_ and _hadajuban_ , and Aguri shivered briefly.There was no reason for it; the air in the room was warm and thick.Myoge’s hand was soft between her shoulder blades as she guided Aguri to the bath.

She needed help to climb in, but once she did, she sank into the hot water with gratitude. She had never been happier to be in a bath than right now.She felt Myoge’s hands take her hair and gather it up with her warm, damp hands, and tie it up again into a secure knot on top of her head.Myoge held some clean cloth over her shoulder wound for a while.It was not bleeding freely anymore, as it had been when she was in the tree, but it continued to seep little droplets.Myoge held the pressure until she was satisfied that it had stopped.

Aguri leaned back and rested her head against the high back of the tub.She breathed the smell of the incense, the water, and listened to the gentle sloshing of Myoge’s hands moving around in it.She was mildly startled by a gentle stream of hot water down the middle of her chest.Her eyes snapped open. 

Myoge was leaning over her with a large wooden ladle.“Sh, it’s alright.Just me.”

Aguri closed her eyes again, and allowed herself to drift.

As Myoge poured the hot water over her again, she started singing softly: _“May I eliminate all evil thoughts…”_ Her voice was sweet and pleasing, and the tune was clearly meant to be a droning chant, but Myoge’s voice gave it a musicality that Aguri found relaxed her further. _“May I eliminate all evil thoughts…”_

Aguri wasn’t sure how many times she sang this.She surrendered to whatever it was Myoge was doing.It was the most peace she had felt in ages.

The words changed, then. “ _May I cultivate good deeds…_ ”

Again, the song repeated.The droning of it wound itself around in Aguri’s brain.She resisted the urge to chant along.She could not find the breath to ask her what the song was, what its purpose was. _More Zen nonsense,_ she thought.

_“May I help save all living beings…”_

The song repeated as streams of hot water ran down her skin, over and over, achieving their own serene rhythm.Aguri lost any sense of time.She forgot the pain of her wounds.She was filled with a profound calm, and then beneath that, a sense that these words were words she needed to hear.These were thoughts that her mind needed to hold.That there was a benevolence and a rightness that had escaped her and that she was being given a chance to behold it.

She could, for a moment, envision a life in which she did not cling to bad deeds simply because she was clinging to what passed for love.

She noticed that the singing had stopped.So had the water.She opened her eyes to find Myoge gazing at her intently.A curious, unfocused longing pulled at her.She managed a weak smile.“Am I a Buddhist now?” 

“That’s not up to me,” Myoge responded after a moment.

“What did you just do to me, then?” Aguri persisted.

Myoge unfolded a fresh robe and laid it on the bench beside her.Her mouth curled into a little smile, and she shrugged.“I gave you a bath.” 

Though exhausted, Aguri lay awake for a long while that night.She kept smelling the scent of the incense, and hearing the words of the song, repeated: _May I eliminate all evil thoughts… May I cultivate good deeds… May I help save all living beings…_

And she kept feeling the hot water running down her skin, and the gentle touch of Myoge’s soft hands.


	19. Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex wrestles with freeing Kara from the grip of the Black Mercy. Astra wrestles with an untoward fondness for human culture.

 

Alex shoved open the door to Max’s cell.He looked up, his smirking mouth preparing some snide witticism that Alex was not interested in.She grabbed his collar, yanked him up off the floor, and shoved him into the plexifiber wall of the cell, face first.“WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU SON OF A BITCH?”

Max seemed sincerely surprised by the sudden onslaught with no preamble.He groaned a little.“Agent Danvers–”She spun him around and powered a fist into his stomach.The breath knocked out of him, he leaned back against the wall.“You know, if you could maybe tell me what I–”

She felt her fingers wrap themselves around his throat.“Did I stutter?” she spat.“WHAT.DID.YOU.DO?”She squeezed.She felt his windpipe.She was acutely aware that she could kill him now if she chose and that it wouldn’t even cause her to break a sweat.She didn’t release him.

He struggled and gestured to the hands wrapped around his throat.Reluctantly, she released him and shoved him into the wall again.

“What did you to her?” she demanded again.

Max tried to put up his hands in supplication.“Agent Danvers, I don’t know what you’re–”

She hit him again, harder this time.She wondered if that sound she heard was a rib cracking.She didn’t care.“Don’t lie to me!” 

“I’m not!”

“You’ve been after her since she first showed her face!”She sent a right cross dead into his jaw.His head snapped back and banged against the plexi.“So now you’ve found something to take her out of play!Tell me HOW!”

“Whatever happened, I didn’t–”

She shoved him back again, sent a knee up into his crotch, and watched him double over.“Tell me how to fix her, Max, or I swear to you, they’re going to need a hose to take you out of this cell.”

Sinking onto the floor, he wheezed, “What would the Buddha say, Agent Danvers?”

She pounced on him, punching him again, knocking him onto his back.“You don’t know the first thing about it, Max.”

She didn’t feel the blows after that, she was only aware of hitting him again and again, of his repeated denials, and, eventually, after what felt like a long time but could not have been, J’onn entering the room, getting his hands around her ribs, and dragging her off of him.She fought him hard enough that she could tell even in the moment that they were going to be sore later.

 

*****

 

Alex slumped in a chair in J’onn’s office, holding an ice pack on the back of her hand. 

“You look like shit, Agent.”

“You should see the other guy.”

“I did. You may have dislocated his jaw and Dr. Liu tells me you probably broke one or two of his ribs.”

“It’s not like he was using them.”Alex stopped then, and sighed.“I’m sorry, J’onn.I let myself get out of control.”

He nodded.“Yeah, you did. That concerns me, because that’s not something that happens to you very often anymore. You’re a far cry from the reckless drunk I pulled out of that jail cell by the Nat City Piers. I saw you face a stone cold, homicidal Altraxian three times your size without breaking a sweat just last week. This is a little… regressive for you.” 

She flushed.“It’s just harder when it comes to Kara.”

He nodded.“I understand, Alex. You know what you and she both mean to me.But listen to me.Just like you got sober for her, just like you found Zen for her, I need you to dig down and find that place of calm for her now.You’re no good to her if you’re in a state of rage and panic.Not to mention that you know she wouldn’t want you roughing up prisoners, even Maxwell Lord.”

She nodded.He was right, of course.Maxwell, and others like him who disliked alien heroes, often disdainfully referred to Kara and those like her as “gods.” Alex thought that if that were so, that she was the left hand of god; the one willing to do things that the right hand didn’t want to know about.She had found honor in that.

“Not to mention,” J’onn added dryly, “that you do create a bit of trouble for me when you do things like that without clearance.”

Alex snorted.

“If, after the beatdown you just laid on him, Max Lord has nothing to tell us, don’t you think it’s possible that he really has no idea what’s going on?”

She shrugged. “He’s dangerous. It’s not hard to imagine him lying.”

J’onn nodded.“That’s true.And understand something; I get that it might have felt good to beat the hell out of him, but that’s not saving Kara.It’s keeping you sitting here in my office with an ice pack on your hand instead of working the problem.”

Alex nodded.“You’re right.”She smiled faintly. “It’s good to have you back, sir.”

 

*******

 

Kara lay on the table in the med bay, the tendrils of the plant wound thick around her waist, shoulders, neck, its strange blue-gray flowers pulsing as it drew whatever it was drawing from Kara. Any attempt to cut the vines sent Kara into a state of cardiac arrest, and was immediately abandoned.After several unsuccessful attempts to rouse her from whatever unconsciousness this flora caused, Alex had given herself over to the exercise of science.

She had been monitoring her sister closely.She saw all kinds of activity, yet no consciousness.Occasional bursts of kastritonin, the Kryptonian equivalent of serotonin, would bloom across the monitors.The plant would seem to shudder at those times, and momentarily tighten its grip. Sparks danced across the space on the monitor where prefrontal cortex activity was monitored.She saw Kara’s eyes flickering this way and that in her unconsciousness, looking nearly identical to REM sleep.Whatever this was, it didn’t seem to be killing her, at least not in an expedient way. But it wasn’t releasing her either. 

“What’s going on in there?” she whispered, squinting at the readout.

This moment was a test of everything she had learned about maintaining calm.She had done terrible things in the line of duty, and she had come close to losing her stomach for it.The question of whether she had done so entirely or not was being tested sorely lately.She shuddered.She still felt a little soreness around her ribcage where J’onn had had to forcibly drag her away from Max.Serenity was elusive. 

 

****

 

Eliza Danvers sighed into the phone.“Did you try artificially elevating her kastritonin levels?”

“Yeah. Kara goes into cardiac arrest.It’s like the plant knows it’s being tampered with.”

“So you’re probably afraid to try injecting the plant directly.”

“Yeah.”

Another brief pause.“What’s stimulating the cardiac episodes?When she goes into arrest, what kind of activity are you seeing?”

“It’s like an electrical storm,” Alex sighed. “Her whole brain lights up.Her narvasol counts go through the roof. I think the plant is using her as a battery, which is fucked, because she’s an unlimited battery.” She stretched her fingers, looked at the little bruises and scratches she’d acquired on her hands lately. 

Eliza could hear the regret in that pregnant pause. “You didn’t do this to her.”

“I know.But I got a PhD in molecular exobiology so that I could be here for her at this exact moment. I joined the DEO, so that I could be here for her, at this exact moment.And now I’m here, and I’m…”She couldn’t bring herself to say the word _failing_.

“Ah, no you don’t.” Eliza turned stern. “No-one loves Kara more than you do, and no-one on this earth is more capable of saving her right now. You’ll find a way. Maybe it won’t be the way you think. It probably won’t be beating it out of anyone, just for the record.”

“Yeah.”Alex was sheepish. “I know.”

 

******

 

Kara had been Alex’s first alien.She’d seen Kara’s famous cousin on television of course, but as for meeting one in the flesh, Kara was it.Her cousin had delivered Kara to the family on a sun-splashed autumn day, and Alex had hidden at the top of the stairs, starstruck, because she knew who he was, dopey horn-rimmed glasses or no. 

Kara struggled a lot in the beginning.Alex helped her mother take her to OT appointments so she could learn to manage what Earth’s environment did to her senses.And then, after things like walking around and picking up mugs were no longer such an undertaking, Alex shepherded her around town, and around school, desperately trying to get her caught up on thirteen years’ worth of missed social cues.

But even amid all the missed dates and curtailed social evenings with friends, all the skipped school events because Kara needed therapy or was too overstimulated to go outside, she saw Kara’s shining heart.She saw the good and the love in her.Even her own resentment at being burdened with her care withered in the face of it.No human she had ever met radiated so much love, so much right thought and right action, though she hadn’t had those words for it back then. 

That goodness, of course, wasn’t a Kryptonian trait, per se. But the powerful intensity and moral clarity… that, it seemed, surely was.Astra was evidence enough of that.

Alex sat in the lab, head between her hands, sifting the data and periodically watching her sister slumber on the table.

 _Bi-bi-beep._ Com link. 

“Yeah, J’onn.What’s up?”

“Well, Agent Danvers, I’m sorry to create an added pressure here, but Agent Vasquez has been stitching together these signal bursts, and we’re no closer to finding the Fort, but think we’ve worked out what it is that Astra’s people were doing at Maxwell’s lab, and if we’re right about it, we’re going to need Kara.”

“Is it his power source?”

“No. His satellites.”

Alex sighed heavily. Of course. No impossible task was ever asked of her unless it was under unreasonable circumstances and on a ridiculous timetable.“Okay, I’ll do what I can.”

 

 

******

 

Astra sat lounging in her war room, reviewing body camera footage of Alexandra Danvers in action in her last altercation with Non and the team he had taken to Lord Technologies. She was quick, cunning, and, for a human, strong.Her marksmanship was unassailable. Her leadership style, natural. Her anger was cool, controlled, powerful. _She is beautiful in her anger._

Non approached her from behind his workstation and watched her scrub backwards over the footage to view it again.“Why the interest in this one, wife? Should you not be studying her commanding officer?”

“I have. But this one interests me mainly due to her proximity to my niece. Curiosity, husband. Nothing more.”

Non lifted an eyebrow. “So, you are speaking to me again.”

Astra nodded, not looking up, re-watching the footage of Alexandra Danvers rappelling into the lobby of Lord Technologies through a shattered front skylight. “We are of common cause. There is no reward in tearing one another apart.”

He touched her shoulder, a gesture that startled Astra, as he rarely did it.

“You are confident that your alternative approach to using Lord’s resources will work?”

He nodded.

“Good.”

And then he walked away, returning to his work.

If he had felt inclined to read through her search histories, Non would know that Astra had developed more of a fondness for certain elements of human culture than she might have let on.In particular, as she watched Alexandra Danvers, she thought of the words of one human poet that had struck her when she read them: 

_“What a piece of work is man,_

_How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty,_

_In form and moving how express and admirable,_

_In action how like an Angel,_

_In apprehension how like a god,_

_The beauty of the world,_

_The paragon of animals._

_And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?_

_Man delights not me; no, nor_

_Woman neither…”_

 

She lacked the context to know what the author’s intent was, this William Shakespeare, but the words beat themselves into her chest now as she watched the video again. She had indeed dismissed humans as only animals; noble, perhaps, but still just animals. Only the children of Rao were pure rational beings made in his image, she thought.But not this one.She was not a low being.Astra saw a soul in her, fierce and familiar.She saw an intellect worthy of preservation.For the first time since this plan had been set into motion, the feeling stirred in her gut that perhaps she was doing something wrong.If humans were lower beings, then it mattered little to bend them to her will in order to save the world they lived on.But what of this one?

How dare this Alexandra make herself known?How dare she challenge Astra on who was deserving of their freedom, and who was not? How dare she be noble in reason and infinite in faculty?

“ _Man delights not me; no, nor_

_Woman neither”_

But what did it mean, she wondered, if this was not truly so?

She set her work station to send off a few more bursts of garbled code into the ether.If Alexandra Danvers was as intelligent as Astra suspected, the source of the code should be obvious.What was that human children’s story about a trail of breadcrumbs?She could not remember.


	20. Shared Gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ardith struggles to decipher a strange dream.

 

Ardith’s stomach grumbled loudly.

It was dark now, and they were on the open sea.Some of the crew had passed by, occasionally with some unidentifiable foodstuff in hand that they gnawed on while doing their work.She was too exhausted to think clearly, and none of the Danish she could remember would be particularly useful in asking for food. 

“They’ll have to give us something soon,” Wyne mumbled to nobody in particular.“We’re not much good to them if we look half starved to death.”

But he was passing out from hunger and exhaustion himself.Jetta was already snoring on the other side of her.

She lay awake in the night, listening to the creak of the ship, the sounds of water slapping against the hull.She was too addled to try tolisten to the back and forth among the crew to try to pick out familiar words.She was tired, hurting, and cold.The night air was cold at sea, colder than what she was dressed for.The Danes didn’t seem to notice it; they were all dressed properly, for one thing, and they were moving about.They came from a cold place, she thought.Caja had said it was colder there.Perhaps this was like summer to them.

Her ribs had taken a beating in her most recent battle with Ase.They ached as they never had.She didn’t want to look at the deep purple bruises she knew were stretched across them.She half wished the swords had been steel and that Ase had simply killed her.She was sore nearly everywhere.Her arms ached, her legs ached.She could feel the constellations of a thousand little nicks and scrapes and scratches from the fights yesterday, stinging all over her skin.

She had no idea what even the next hour held, let alone the next day.Harald had come on watch and menaced her several times, but never followed through.Nevertheless, she knew it was only his fear of Ase that had kept her thus far unmolested. 

The worst was, she had failed.Jokum had placed Haedwalle in her hands when he died, and she had failed him.She had managed to get Caja out of there, but now there was no-one to take care of her, and this weighed upon her almost as much as the rest of it; being captured, failing to defend her home, leaving the people of Haedwalle to the mercy of the Danes.She knew what the Danes did.She knew the town probably still smoldered.She thought perhaps she could smell the smoke, but then, there were torches on this dragon boat.

Ardith drew her knees up to her chest, rested her head on them, and sat shivering.She wept, quietly, because she could not abide the Danes knowing she had broken.But she wept.Hot tears slid down her cold cheeks, and her ribs ached trying to contain one shuddering sob after another.

She had nothingleft.

 

*****

 

Ase had slept at the stern of the ship for a time, a thick woolen blanket rolled up beneath her head, but something had tugged her from her sleep.She walked out onto the deck. 

In the light of the torches, she saw the three Saxons; the two lads slept, and Ardith sat with knees drawn up to her chest, shivering.It was cold, Ase realized, drawing her cloak around herself.But this appeared more like the shivering of silent weeping.

She wentto Ardith and crouched down in front of her.“It’s cold tonight, isn’t it?”The girl remained silent, shaking.“I’m sorry that we must do things this way.But I cannot trust you yet. You understand.”It felt absurd, talking to her as if she understood, yet she held on to her suspicion that she did, at least in some small way. 

She hesitated for a moment, then knelt down beside Ardith, and wrapped her cloak around them both. “This cloak has kept me warm on many cold nights,” she went on, speaking low and soft, trying to soothe her.“The red of it is for the color of my standard.I’ll show you my standard tomorrow, if you want. You probably didn’t notice it when we fought.” 

A few of the crew gave her looks, but knew better than to speak.

Ase held her carefully, close enough to keep her cloak wrapped around them both, but not too tightly.“I do mean what I say, that I wish to let you free once I can trust you.You’ll come to see, I’m really not so bad.It’s unfortunate that we met under such circumstances.But I felt the hand of fate when I first saw you, and perhaps you did too, whether you know it or not.The Three Norns have woven our threads together.Do not allow your hatred for me to blind you.”

The girl’s shivering seemed to slow a bit.“ _Bacraut_ ,” she mumbled in a muffled, tear-soaked voice.

“ _Ja, ja,_ ” Ase answered, chuckling softly.“Don’t worry.We’ll work on your Danish.”

 

 

***

 

 

Ardith ached beyond words. She wanted to throw Ase off of her, tell her how much she hated her, but she didn’t have the strength.She was cold, and Ase had wrapped her cloak around them both, and said things Ardith mostly didn’t understand in a low, soothing voice, and it was close enough to kindness that Ardith merely accepted it.She was warm.She could pretend the arms that held her belonged to someone she cared for.She could let herself drift off to sleep, and forget herself and her fear and misery for a short while.

Ardith rarely remembered dreams.But in her uneasy sleep, she saw two yellow eyes in the dark.She watched the eyes for what felt like a very long time, watched them draw closer, until the figure of a wolf emerged from the fog and shadows, with yellow eyes that stared at her intently.She stared back, uncertain of its intentions but not quite afraid.

She saw it look up, past her shoulder, and she heard soft, padding footsteps behind her.A great cat, much larger than the ones she had known in Suth-Saexe, strolled up behind her.It looked much like the one she wore around her neck, only it was the same size as the wolf, or maybe larger.It rubbed its cheek against Ardith’s shoulder and when she reached over and scratched it between its shoulder blades, it purred loudly.She felt the rumble of it in her hands, and in the soles of her feet.

The cat moved slowly past her, slinking toward the wolf.The wolf growled low in its throat, but held its ground.The cat stopped, and then moved forward another step.They circled one another in the dark, and Ardith watched, uncomprehending.

The wolf ventured closer to the cat, sniffed at it, circled some more.The cat, for its part, was wary, never disengaging from the wolf, but it drew nearer and sniffed at it.Their circling ceased, and they continued to investigate one another’s scents, until they decided at some length that they were satisfied with one another, and the wolf nuzzled at the cat’s chest, and then laid itself down in front of the cat.After a moment, the cat, deciding the situation was agreeable, curled itself around the wolf’s grey, furry body, and after a moment of shifting and rearranging, the two creatures settled into one another and fell asleep.

Ardith forgot what happened after that.

 

******

 

Ase went back to sleep for a short while after holding Ardith.She left her cloak wrapped around the girl.It was probably too meaningful a gift, or it would be, under normal circumstances.She would have to find something else.

She dreamt a strange dream, and it woke her before the sky had grown pale.By the time her eyes had opened all the way, it had escaped her.

When she came again at dawn and found the girl awake, Ase couldn’t help the thought that she didn’t particularly want to take the cloak from her.However, Ardith stood up, and with her bound hands, tugged it off and handed it back to her.She looked rested, Ase thought.That was good.

“No,” she said, when Ardith tried to return the cloak, “you keep it.You don’t have proper warm clothing.” She tried to push the cloak back onto her.

But the girl shook her head.She dropped the cloak on the deck and tugged at the blue wool of Ase’s tunic, saying something in English.Apparenly Ardith agreed that the cloak bore too much meaning.

Ase squinted at her.She looked down at her own clothing, and tugged at the sleeve.She looked back at Ardith.“You want one of these?”

Ardith stared at her.

Ase frowned.She tugged at the sleeve again.“ _Kyrtill?_ ” she suggested, pronouncing the name of it slowly.

Ardith nodded.Her mouth worked at the word a couple of times before she had it, chewing on it the way an English speaker would do.Ase smiled at her accent.This would be some work.

“ _Kyrtill_ ,” Ardith repeated, finally getting it close enough for Ase’s satisfaction as well as, apparently, her own.

“Brida,” Ase called, “can we find a _kyrtill_ for the girl?It’s too cold for just that underthing she’s wearing, and she doesn’t want my cloak.”

Brida disappeared and came back a little while later with one, a dark green.It would be a bit big on Ardith’s slim frame, as it was clearly cut for a man nearly Harald’s size, but Ase freed her hands, and the girl slipped it on.She seemed more comfortable, then.Ase retrieved her cloak from the deck and slipped it back on.

Indeed, Ardith was nearly swimming in the garment, but she looked a bit more like a Dane now, and this pleased Ase.And in the meantime, perhaps she could find a more suitable gift.She reached for Ardith’s arm, and the girl jerked away from her at first.“Come now,” Ase scolded gently. “I have given you what you asked.Come with me.”

Ardith hesitated.One of the lads said something to her, and after a brief exchange, Ardith relented, following Ase toward the stern of the ship.A few deckhands were breaking fast with some bread and some smoked fish.She saw the hungry look on Ardith’s face, and claimed some of the food, handing it to her.She devoured it quickly.She could hear the grumbling of the girl’s stomach even over the sounds of the sea.And when she had demolished every last crumb, every last flake, as was becoming predictable, she looked at Ase and asked, “ _Og mine brødre?_ ”

She wanted her friends fed, too.Ase sighed.She almost regretted this venture for a moment. But she wasn’t about to let Ingrid be right about slaves being too much trouble, and so she ordered one of the men to bring some bread and some dried meat to the Saxon lads.

“You must know by now,” Ase said to her as she stood, drinking a cup of ale and staring at the endless water, “that I cannot afford to keep your friends as well as you.Once we return to my home, they will have to be sold. You cost me nearly half my crew.And while you are well worth it to me, my crew has given up a great deal.You must take care of your people, and I honor you for it, but I must take care of mine.I hope you won’t be too angry with me.”

Ardith looked at her and shrugged.She didn’t understand.Ase sighed. 

She thought perhaps that things might improve further if she made Ardith feel more at home.She had plenty of church plunder below deck.Perhaps some Christian relic might appease her.She pointed to Ardith and asked slowly, “Are you Christian?”

Ardith stopped drinking.She pointed to herself.“Christian?”

Ase nodded.“Are you Christian?”

The girl glared at her, and spat.She said something in English that sounded much like a curse. 

Ase laughed.“So we have that much in common, then.”

And then Ardith reached up to her neck, and pulled from beneath the layers of her clothing a necklace with a charm on it. 

A cat charm. 

“Freyja,” the girl explained, sounding a bit indignant.

Ase had not thought there were pagans left among the Saxons. That was what she had heard, at least.Yet here was Ardith, her Saxon prize, declaring herself for Freyja.And in actual fact, the village had had no church. 

She reached up to her neck and tugged at the leather cord which held a heavy, elaborately-wrought charm of a wolf’s head.“Tyr,” she said.

A strange look crossed Ardith’s face, then.Ase dearly wished they shared more language.She wanted to know what the reason was for the way her cheek grew suddenly pale, the frown that drew her dark brows together. 

“I dreamed of a great cat last night,” Ase mused, “like the ones that pull Freyja’s chariot.” The memory of her dream faded into her mind like a spring snow melting in reverse.“A great cat,” Ase continued, “and a wolf.They lay together, peacefully.They loved one another.They slept.”This was ordained.Ase knew it now.The threads of their lives had been woven together. 

The task, then, was set before her.She would make the girl understand.

 


	21. The Burden of the Broken Self

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myoge presses Aguri for a decision.

 

“…It sounded as though she was performing the Vesak ritual for washing the Buddha, but when I went in after she left, the Buddha was dry.”

“And you say she entered and left with Inouye Aguri?”

“Yes! It was very strange. What do you suppose she was doing in there?”

“Well, Myoge often does things her own way. I don’t know why Konjen Roshi lets her.”

Myoge had enough of listening to Senkō and the other nun muttering to each other in their hushed voices.She came around the corner and faced them.“Perhaps you should ask him,” she suggested, smirking.

The other young nun flushed and with an embarrassed bow, excused herself and scurried away.Senko held her ground, though. “Respectfully, of course, I must ask why you brought her here.”

“Compassion, Senkō. She was badly wounded. We are meant to have compassion, even for those we dislike.”

But Senkō was not satisfied.“But even for such a wicked person? How many peasants has she murdered in her husband’s name?”

Myoge looked at Senkō in the fading light and saw too much fight in her posture.She summoned patience into her voice as she spoke.“Senkō, the truth is more complicated than we know, sometimes. Roshi has chosen to allow this, for now. Perhaps she _is_ wicked. But perhaps she is only a light in the dark, light the rest of us, whose fire has burned too hot sometimes. That’s what I’m trying to determine. And you must trust my judgment.”

Senkō nodded, and though Myoge could see she was aching to argue the point further with her, the young woman bowed respectfully and began walking away.Myoge stood watching her, listening to her soft steps for a moment, until she paused and turned back.“Myoge,” she inquired, “why were you bathing her?”

“Because she needed a bath.”

“But why the Vesak ritual? Is that not… inappropriate?”

Myoge held her gaze steady for a moment, and then, in perfect calm, answered, “Because, as you say, Senkō, I often do things my own way.”

Senkō, her frustration obvious, bowed again and marched away.

Senkō would be a skilled warrior someday.And she followed the rules impeccably.She was excellent at rules.She didn’t yet understand that the intellect and spirit also needed to be fully engaged in order to draw closer to Buddhahood.She was still trying to get there by good behavior.It would only get her so far, and would have to be properly broken at some point in order to be remade. But that was not to be Myoge’s project now.

 

*****

 

Aguri awoke from her dreams, disquieted and hungry and anxious to see Myoge again.She stared at her walls, hauled herself to her feet, made a few circuits around the room, and then heavily laid herself back onto the bedroll. 

She had wept quietly to herself when she was in the tree, sure that she would be found, that her husband’s retainers would give her an honorless death, then and there.But then, was it really the loss of honor that concerned her, she wondered, or more pride?Myoge had challenged her on this question several times now, and Aguri was not sure she knew the answer.

The door swung open as the sun was setting.Myoge came in with a plate of food and set it down on the small table beside the bed.“You and I must talk.”

Aguri nodded.“I think so.” She sat up, and plucked a few sweet berries from the edge of the plate. They regarded each other silently for a few moments while she chewed them slowly and then swallowed them.

Myoge held her gaze until Aguri began to feel uncomfortable with the silence. 

“What is it that we must talk about?”

Myoge smiled.“So, have you considered my suggestion?”

Aguri nodded.

“What do you think?”

“I think that I do not understand Zen.”

Myoge laughed.“Is that all? You do, you just don’t know that you do.”

Aguri frowned and poked at some leafy greens on the plate. “But isn’t that required for joining the order?”

“Well, what is required is your commitment to learn. As long as you give that, you will be protected here until you’re ready to swear yourself to the order and take your dharma name.”

Aguri hesitated. “And who will teach me?”

“I will.” Myoge’s rested on hers for a moment before continuing. “Your time for making this decision is growing short, Aguri. Some of the others were aware that I had bathed you and have been wondering at it. Soon the discussions will reach the roshi’s ears and then the reckoning can no longer be avoided.”

Aguri tugged loose a strand of her white hair and wound it around one of her fingertips. “What was the meaning of that bath? I asked you if you had made me a Buddhist.”

“You did.And I told you, that that is not up to me. That is not how it works to practice dharma. I showed you a small glimpse of what it is to know Zen.”

“So it was a ritual, then.”

“Yes. Not one normally used for those circumstances. We normally wash the buddha when we sing those words.”

“But instead you were washing me.”

Myoge shrugged.“You needed it more than the Buddha did.”

“So you cleansed me with prayers normally reserved for your Buddha.No wonder they are whispering.”

Aguri had the thought, briefly, that Myoge knew it would send rumors back to the roshi and force her hand.She could be that clever. 

“Well, I’m known for doing things my own way.”

“Things like bringing an infamous _ronin_ into the zendo, is that so?”

“Just so.”Myoge leaned forward then, and tugged at the hair that Aguri had been absently winding around her finger.“But if you are going to accept this offer, there are some things that I need to know."

“You still don’t trust me?”

“I just wish to understand.”

Aguri nodded.“Then ask.”

“Why did they call you Amaterasu’s Hand?”

“She was my god,” Aguri said simply.

“But why?”

“She is glorious. Beloved. Powerful. And she is fearsome.Her sense of honor was so strong that she cast her own husband aside when he proved himself to be wicked.”

Myoge nodded.“And now you have done the same.”

Aguri paused. “I… could not cast him out, even after I saw him turn wicked. You must understand, he was not always a wicked man. He was a low-status bastard child who wanted nothing more than to be recognized by his famous father, Oda Nobunaga. For every achievment that failed to bring that recognition, he became more bitter. But I understood that, and felt pain for him at it. And because he loved me, and I loved him, I allowed myself to make excuses for his brutality when it came.”

“You forgot the light.”

Aguri nodded. “He told me often that he loved me. He treated me nearly as his equal. He told me that he cared not at all that my wounds from the war left me unable to bear children.He wrote me poetry for Tanabata.”

“Good poetry?”

Aguri hesitated. “Mine was better.”

Myoge nodded. “How long did you spend in his service before you understood the wrong he was asking of you?”

Her heart grew heavy. “Too long. I believed that I had not truly been loved until I married him. I hewed to my oaths to him as long as I could stand to do.”

“Did you love him?”

“I… yes.”

“Do you still?”

The sun slanted in through the windows at a sharp angle, and Aguri felt the faint red touch of its light.Myoge sat, lit from behind, looking like a painting in ink.Her heart felt like a closed fist. “Why do you ask me such questions?”

“It’s important. The roshi is going to ask you this. And more.” Myoge leaned forward then, out of the severe shaft of light, and Aguri could see the softness of her face in shadow.“Aguri, dharma practice means letting go of a great many old things, and it’s important for me to know if one of those things is some remaining love for Noboru.”

She remembered first marrying him, helping him to claw his way power, bit by bit.They fought side by side, and she won many battles for him. She supported his desire for recognition, first from Nobunaga and then, from Hideyoshi, now the de facto ruler of Japan. She led men under his banner. She wore his colors alongside her own, which was mostly unheard of. He was gentle to her in private, and they made love often. He said he didn’t care that she couldn’t give him an heir, that he would find a way around that. “We rise together, my love,” he often said.

He was a home for her to come to, and in those days, she would have given anything for that.

“My family rejected me,” she explained. “At first, because I was marked.” She gestured to the white streak in her hair. “I was born like this. And then, because when I was given my first retainership, I told them that I would not marry and bear children.

“Only my niece Keiko loved me after that, but after a time, my sister refused to allow me to see her. Being a stubborn little thing, she sometimes snuck out of her mother’s house and came to mine. But my sister took something from me by barring us from each other.

“No amount of victory and fame truly filled the space that left in me. But Noboru accepted me. He loved me as I was. Some part of me will always honor that. But I cannot honor who he has become since those days.”

Myoge seemed satisfied with that response.But she pressed further. “And what about you? Do you honor who you have become since those days?”

The question nearly sent Aguri into a spasm of weeping; unexpected and raw, Myoge had struck her heart. “I… can no longer serve that master.”

Myoge nodded slowly, and touched her wounded shoulder gently. “The beautiful thing is, you can build your future. This very moment, you can build it. You are the sum, right now, of every choice you have ever made, but you are making other choices, new choices. You can choose to become more than a _ronin_ , if you want to. You create your own karma, moment by moment. You create your own rebirth.”

Aguri looked down at Myoge’s hand. 

“Have you thought any more about what we saw in the water?”

Myoge nodded.“I have.”

“What does the roshi think?”

“I told him of your vision. I didn’t tell him that I shared it.”

“Why?”

Myoge looked uncertain, which seemed rather rare for her.Finally, she answered, “Because that moment was yours and mine, alone.”

 

*******

 

Approaching someone with humility was not something Aguri had had to do in a rather long time. 

The roshi was as Myoge had described him; large in physical stature, but carrying himself with a delicate air.She entered his room, and found him engrossed in a piece of calligraphy that was spread on a low table before him.She watched his hand draw the brush across the paper in a long, confident arc before withdrawing, leaving a perfectly tapering tail on the end of it.He was skilled, as Myoge had said. 

He had the size and build of a warrior, Aguri thought, but not quite the demeanor of one.He was not fierce-looking, did not project toughness.He was calm, and when he finally looked up with her, she saw a powerful intelligence and a gentle good humor as he surveyed her. 

“I had expected you would be taller,” he remarked, seeming amused with himself. Aguri recalled Myoge’s comment that the roshi could be funny.He gestured.“Please sit.”

She sat at the table across from him.

He spent a few moments more, drawing a pair of intersecting lines across the arc.Then, as if remembering she was still there, he looked up at her.“So. Myoge finds a samurai of ill repute, brings her back to the zendo, nurses her to health, and protects her from the retainers who hunt her.And you asked her to do none of these things.”

Aguri thought about the conversation she and Myoge had had before coming here.“I did not. I had intended to die. I was angry with her at first, for mending me and bringing me here.”

He smiled knowingly.“You don’t seem angry now.”

Aguri nodded.“I am not.”

He inspected her.“Not about that, at least. Isn’t that so?”

She shifted, uncomfortable under his gaze.Although it was friendly, it was penetrating in a way that she disliked. It was everything that bothered her about the way Myoge sometimes looked at her, only more of it.

“It’s alright that you still carry anger, you haven’t even truly started your own journey,” he assured her, sensing her reticence to give a wrong answer.“Anger is no doubt only one of a hundred things that have been weighing on your shoulders.Are you tired of being so heavy?”

Aguri considered him.She watched for a few minutes as the roshi made another perfect arc across the page, wondering at the stillness of his hand, the bones in his wrist suspending themselves at just the precise angle to produce a single, flawless stroke. “I am tired of being Inouye Aguri.”

The roshi looked up at her again and smiled. “Then it will be good news to hear that you do not have to be.That self that you are so anxious to run from is nothing but an illusion anyway.”

“The things I have done seem very real to me. Rushing into a column of samurai in the river with the back of my armor on fire. Seizing land in my husband’s name. Killing the innocent. Closing my eyes to his treachery as he betrayed his lord, Hideyoshi, whom we both had fought under for nearly fifteen years, choosing to help the Tokugawas behind his back.”

“Why did he betray Hideyoshi to the Tokugawas?”

“My husband is a bastard of Oda Nobunaga’s. He wanted Hideyoshi to legitimize and recognize him after Nobunaga’s assassination by his enemies, to hasten his ascension. Hideyoshi would not. Even by then, my husband’s ways were brutal and thuggish and I imagine Hideyoshi did not want to reward them. But Noboru wanted that legitimacy more than anything, and even though Hideyoshi tried to reward his successes in other ways, he denied my husband the one thing he wanted. And the Tokugawas might have given it to him, had they won decisively.”

The roshi considered this. “Why did you stay with him for so long?”

Aguri shrugged. “I made vows. Many of them.”

They regarded each other in silence for what seemed like several minutes.

Finally, he spoke. “Well, you can choose whether you allow your past actions to define you. Now, Myoge has told me of your vision in the water.”

She was anxious suddenly to discuss it with someone who seemed to command so much wisdom.“I saw myself.It was… not me. It did not look like me. Yet I knew it was.”

She was aware of the chittering of a kestrel, perhaps more than one, outside the window somewhere.It didn’t sound like a mating call, which would be expected at this time of year.More of a friendly chatter.The roshi got up and poured a cup of tea before answering.The slowness of their exchange was frustrating.Aguri had always found long pauses maddening, and even though she had adjusted to a different pace since arriving here, the roshi moved in an entirely different stream of time. “Tea?” he asked finally.

She shook her head.“Thank you, no.”

He poured her a cup anyway.“You will probably change your mind.”He set it in front of her.“So what do you think it meant, then?”

She shrugged.“I was hoping you could enlighten me.I am not accustomed to visions.”

The roshi smiled.“I’m not, either.”

Aguri frowned.“Don’t you Buddhists believe in souls that return again and again to live new lives?”

The roshi chuckled quietly.“It isn’t quite what you’re picturing.Why? Do you think you were seeing a past life?”

“I don’t know what I saw. My faith and my experiences are incredibly short of explanations.”

“And that’s why you chose not to commit _jigai_ ,” the roshi concluded. “Because you saw something you couldn’t explain, and you need to explain it.”

She nodded.

“Are you sure it’s not just fear of death?”

“I don’t fear death,” she answered quickly. “I have spent every night dreaming of my own death since I was young.”

The roshi seemed to lose himself in inspecting his work for a moment.Aguri, not knowing what to do with herself, decided to drink the tea he’d set in front of her.

“I told you that you would change your mind,” he commented.He looked up at her.“We are not a shelter for rogues and killers, but we are here to give sanctuary to those who would commit themselves to learning dharma practice, to freeing themselves from the burden of the broken self, and the illusions that plague them.We are here to help those who wish to escape the shackles of desiring and in so doing, become closer to the state of the Buddha. Are you willing to commit yourself to this?”

Aguri gave him a long look over the rim of her teacup.The hot green tea slid down her throat.Finally she answered. “I don’t know if I can abandon my gods.I don’t know if I can accept or even understand Zen.But the peace you possess… it is what I have been wanting since long before I ever came here.So yes, I can commit myself to learning.I wish to understand what you understand, and become something better than I am.If Zen is the path to that, then nothing will keep me from it.”

He smiled.“You need not necessarily abandon your gods, but know that your relationship with them will probably change.This will be a great exercise in humility for you,” he warned. “Outside these walls, you were a general.It has been a long time, I expect, since you were anyone’s _kohai_. But you will be learning something new, and unlearning many other things.And I cannot be everywhere at once.You will need a _senpai_ , and you will need to accept her instruction.”

Aguri nodded dumbly.“Myoge, then?”

“Yes, Myoge. Can the legendary Inouye Aguri submit herself to the instruction of a nun ten years her junior?”

Aguri reddened for a moment.In truth, she didn’t know if she could. “If not for Myoge, I would not be here.”

“That,” he said gently, but with persistence, “is not a yes.”

“Then, yes.”She scrambled for her mental footing.“Konjen Roshi, what was Myoge’s name before she came to you?”

He shook his head with a serene smile.“That is not mine to tell.If she feels it will help you in your journey, she may share it.”He seemed to be inspecting her for another long, uncomfortable moment.“I will watch your growing dharma practice with great interest.”

“Then you’re accepting me as a postulant?”

“I am, provided that your efforts to learn are sincere.”

“I do nothing without the utmost conviction.”

“Good.Then welcome, Inouye Aguri, to Deepest Mountain.”


	22. A Fleeting Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex gets a tattoo. Astra and Non have some disagreements.

 

Alex sat in the leather chair, slumped forward, shirtless, leaning on a blue cloth apron that was ostensibly for modesty, though it wasn’t doing much at the moment.It was only her, Susan Vasquez, and Abbie, the tattoo artist, in the back room of the shop.She didn’t particularly care what either of them saw.Her head was dropped all the way forward and she stared at a small patch of wood floorboard while Abbie worked, drawing the needle slowly across her skin, feeling its sting and hot vibrations.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Susan wondered.

“Yeah.” 

She heard Susan chuckle.“So, how many of these do you have, anyway?”

Alex clenched her jaw a little, breathing through the discomfort.“This will be my fourth.”

“OK, so I’ve seen the wave, and the kanji characters,” Susan’s voice came, lifted awkwardly above the buzz of the needle.“What are the other ones?”

“A samurai.”Alex took a few deep breaths as Abbie’s needle poked into the bone of her shoulder blade.“On my right quadricep. It’s done in that sumi-é style, like a Japanese ink painting. Abbie did that one too. The kanji characters on my left bicep are my dharma name. That was my first tat, actually.”

Susan walked around the chair, and Alex could now see her boots on the floor in front of her.Alex knew her well enough to be able to hear her gears turning when she was processing something.“So the meaning of the samurai and the dharma name is pretty obvious, I guess.What’s the wave about, though? I never asked.”

Alex winced as the needle vibrated against her bone.“Jesus, Abbie, take it easy,” she grunted.She didn’t mind pain if it was necessary but it probably didn’t need to hurt quite this much.

“Sorry, this is a squirrelly spot.”But then Abbie adjusted something and it was a little better.

“I used to be afraid of the ocean.No reason, just was.Who knows where phobias come from sometimes, right?Anyway, I conquered it by learning to surf.So, the wave is a symbol of conquering my fear.”It was more than that, but it was harder to articulate and while she and Susan knew each other reasonably well, it was sometimes difficult to have abstract conversations with her. 

“Hm.”A long pause followed, filled with more hot prickling sensations and the vibrating needle in her shoulder blade.“So what’s this one for?Why cherry blossoms?”

“Well,” Alex managed, her voice slightly strained by the discomfort of the process, “after last night? We shouldn’t have walked away alive, but we did.”

Abbie knew they were some kind of law enforcement but also knew better than to ask questions about their work.It was the hallmark of a good relationship with one’s tattooist.

“Yes,” Susan prompted, not quite following her.

“Cherry blossoms aren’t around for very long.To me, they’ve always been a … a metaphor for the fact that life is … beautiful, but short, and fragile.”

“It looks great so far.”Another long pause followed, in which the needle buzzed and Alex breathed through it.“So, you don’t think there’s an irony to putting a reminder that life is fleeting on your body in permanent ink?” 

Sensible Susan Vasquez, Alex thought with amusement.“I get why you think so, but no. It’s because _I’m_ the fleeting thing. You see?”

Susan laughed.“One step ahead of me, of course.How much longer do you think, Abbie?”

Abbie thought.“Another half hour, maybe.” 

“Cool,” Susan said.“We’ll go hit a tea house after this, Danvers.I’m kind of antsy to talk shop.”

A little while later, Abbie was spraying her shoulder down with a new polymer finish that would allow Alex to shower and swim over the following days while the tattoo was healing.Alex was really feeling like she wanted to do both of those things.

 

****

 

Astra had gotten so used to spending her time in dark places, cramped places. She sat with her husband in their shared room, restlessly flicking through mission reports of what had occurred during her incarceration.She was often moody and claustrophobic after she’d been outside the confines of Fort Rozz, and today was no exception. “You did well in my absence,” she remarked, without looking up.“No matter that the raid on Lord Technologies did not go to plan. You improvised well.”

“Thank you,” he responded. “Your plan was excellent.”

“Thank you. We are closer to our goal, now.”

He lingered near her for a moment.He wanted something.Not physical intimacy, of course; that had barely ever been part of their relationship and it certainly was not now.But something. 

“I do question your decision, however, with regard to telling us to stand down.”

She glanced up with a sour look, and then returned to her screen. “We will do this with honor, or not at all. Do not make me explain again.”

He sighed, then. “I understand that honor is important to you–”

“It is _not_ ,” she cut him off, glaring at him now, “important _to me_.It is objectively important.I know that your background did not include formal Kryptonian martial training, but surely even your lesser house must have valued honor.”

She saw him wince at the mention of the class difference between their families on Krypton. She had only said it to be hurtful and wasn’t sure why she even wanted to be hurtful.She was still recovering from her ordeal, and perhaps, she reflected, she resented what she had endured to advance their plans. 

“I am sorry,” she said almost immediately.“I have had some difficult days and I am not myself.”

“I can see that.”His voice and body were stiff.“Perhaps it will gratify you to know that your niece has been taken out of the equation.”

Astra nearly crushed the tablet in her hands.“What?”

“It seemed,” he explained carefully, “that you were… struggling… with what to do with your uncooperative relative.So I have taken her piece off of the playing field.”

Astra stood, the muscles in her arms flexing in spite of herself.She was ready to knock him into the next hemisphere.“If you tell me you have harmed so much as a hair on her head–”

He put his hands up in a conciliatory gesture.“Of course, I knew that would not be your wish. I have merely incapacitated her.”

Her eyes narrowed.“How?”

His small smile suggested that he was pleased with himself.“My uncle’s favorite solution.”

Non’s uncle was a botanist with a flair for breeding and cultivating plants that were often used in espionage applications.Astra knew what Non meant.“How could you do this without my knowledge or consent?” She felt a rage rise in her gut. 

“My love,” he said hoarsely, “she was a liability to you. You could not bring yourself to kill her.And I understand that.You still have remnants of affection for her.There is no shame in it.Despite her behaving like a rebellious child toward you.So now, she is at peace.It is more than she deserves.You no longer have to fight her.There was no other way to achieve such a thing.”

“There is always another way,” she spat.

“You sister thought that.Look where it got her.”Non sighed, and carefully approached her.“You, my love, have given birth to a plan that could have saved Krypton, and that _will_ save Earth.That is more valuable than any child you could ever have brought into the world.”

She trembled when he said this.

“And,” he went on, “I will not allow anyone to stand in your way. You are a figure of myth and legend, my love, and I will fight beside you to assure your place in it.”

A jab at her vulnerability, wrapped up with an appeal to her pride.She used to be moved by such petty manipulations.She could not say why she saw through it now, but her flash of rage mellowed into something quieter.She merely nodded.“I see what you intend, now.”

“Then you are not angry?”

“No, I am very angry.In fact, I cannot bear to look at you.”Her voice was like stone. She sat down, took up her tablet again and resolved not to look up from it. 

“You will thank me,” he insisted, calm but injured. 

“Perhaps.But for now, I need to be alone.”

After lingering for a moment, as if hoping she would change her mind, he exited. 

It was a foregone conclusion that Kara had probably been discovered by now and that she had been taken to the DEO.There was, of course, no way that Astra would be setting foot in there again.No, there was only one possible way to approach the problem Non had created, only one person she could possibly speak to who might be a help to her; the human, Alexandra Danvers.She had her doubts about the wisdom of approaching her, but she was certain she could find her easily.Her heartbeat was distinct; strong, steady, and somehow very familiar.Astra knew she could pick it out among the millions.

 

*****

 

Susan Vasquez was a beer drinker, but she was probably the best of Alex’s friends when it came to respecting her sobriety.She’d had a front row seat to how the pressures of the job had turned Alex from a weekend blackout drinker to a functional alcoholic to an off-the-rails drunk who still managed to be great at her job but was reckless in ways that her colleagues both admired and found frightening.

So when Susan wanted to talk shop or unwind after work, the Fukaiyama District’s teahouses were her go-to.The neighborhood was home to a sizeable enclave of Asian students and businesses that catered to them.From what Alex understood, the teahouses were a reasonable approximation of what one might find in Kyoto or elsewhere in Japan.

“So what do you think?” Susan asked her, swirling her cup of green liquid.

Alex frowned.“Did you discuss it with Henshaw?” Henshaw, of course, was J’onn’s human name, the one most of the other agents knew him by. 

“No.It didn’t really occur to me till just now, at the tattoo shop, that there might be dots to connect.”

Susan went over her suspicions again: the bursts of strange signal activity that seemed to be carrying code, the fact that there had been no identifiable source, and the appearance of Astra’s people at Lord Technologies.“So, you said she made it sound like Fort Rozz itself was literally right here, right?”

“Yeah. Like I said, she mentioned leading a revolt, taking control of it, and somehow ending uplanding it here.”

“So, worst case scenario is that they’re here on Earth with all that tech. But if that’s true, then why would they be raiding Max Lord’s place?”

Maxwell Lord had a lot of pretty bleeding-edge tech, but it wasn’t likely that he had anything more advanced than what they had available at Fort Rozz. Even if its current state was a little run-down, Fort Rozz probably had loads of tech that was better than anything Max had. 

“Power source, maybe? Maybe the Fort is running out of batteries by now. I mean, they’ve been here ten years or something.”Alex tilted her cup on its corner and tapped it idly on the top of the low table that they sat at. “What kind of code was it?”

“Nothing I recognized, which was why I thought it might have to do with them. I cleaned up and sent it to the brogrammers downstairs to have a look, but they were confounded too.” Susan Vasquez’s job was the ephemeral field of monitoring signal activity and tracing it to its source. She was generally excellent at it. But the Kryptonians had thus far proven elusive.

They both retreated into thought for a moment.Susan seemed to get distracted watching a group on the far side of the room engaging in a tea ceremony.“We should do the whole shabang like that one time,” she murmured absently.

Alex smiled.“You know, it doesn’t always have to be tea in Fukaiyama. Coffee at a diner is just fine.”

Susan shrugged. “Just trying to respect your lifestyle choice.”

Alex smirked.When Susan had come out as gay a few years ago, Alex had insisted on dragging her to lesbian bars, and had said exactly the same thing.She glanced around, suddenly antsy.She felt like she ought to be doing something right now.

Seeming to sense her mood, Susan suggested, “Hey, why don’t we stop by Kara’s and you can show her the new tat?” 

Alex nodded.“Good idea.” It wasn’t far to Kara’s neighborhood from here, and the two of them could weave in and out of traffic on their motorcycles.

 

****

 

Alex fumbled in her pocket for the keys to Kara’s massive loft door.There was a queer odor in the hallway; something warm, damp and cabbagey.“Jeez,” Susan muttered, “did Kara take up cooking Russian food?”

Alex wrinkled her nose and shrugged.The key scraped in the lock, turned, and then she leaned into the door and pushed it open. 

Something was wrong.

The smell got stronger when she opened the door.The lights were off, except for the one over the stove.Alex’s nerves went suddenly raw. She tossed a glance back at Susan, put her finger to her lips, and stared into the dim.She drew her sidearm and slowly pushed the heavy door open, eyes darting around the eerily quiet space.Susan followed softly behind her.

She crept past the kitchen and then she saw it.Her sister, lying on the floor, still in her blue pressure suit and cape from a recent rescue.Her sister, with a strange, pulsating cluster of fat, rose-like flowers on her chest, with lurid red stamen sticking out from the centers of their blooms. Thick tendrils, as big around as Alex’s fist, trailed outward from the cluster and wound themselves around Kara’s shoulders and thighs.She was unconscious.

“What the fuck…” Susan whispered behind her. 

“I don’t know,” Alex muttered, her heart pounding, “but it’s not good.” She moved in, crouching over her sister.“Just keep your eye on me,” she told Susan. She reached a cautious hand out, got her hand around the tendril that had hooked itself around Kara’s shoulder, and tugged lightly.The plant immediately constricted its grip on Kara, who shuddered once.Alex frowned.

She beckoned to Susan.“Monitor her pulse for me.I’m going to try and pull it off.”

Susan came around the other side and crouched down, placing her fingers on Kara’s wrist.She nodded once at Alex.“Seems normal right now.” 

Alex nodded. “Now let’s see…”She got a grip on the spongy tendril, and it felt strange and not quite alive but it had its own terrible pulse that filled the pit of Alex’s stomach with revulsion. She yanked a little more firmly than before, sustaining her pull.Kara was shuddering again, and the plant again tightened its grip.

“Her pulse is getting a lot harder,” Susan reported.

Alex let go.“This thing doesn’t want to let go.I can’t tell what it’s doing to her here.We’d better call Henshaw.”

Twenty minutes later, Kara was being airlifted out to the DEO’s desert bunker in a black helicopter, with Susan Vasquez riding shotgun and Alex hunched beside Kara’s stretcher in the deafening white noise inside the chopper, clasping her sister’s hand. 

“Don’t worry,” she whispered, feeling her blood growing restive. She knew Kara probably couldn’t hear her, but the words were more for herself anyway.“We’ll fix you up, and find out who did this to you, and I will personally show them the meaning of regret.”


	23. A Fearsome Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ardith realizes that Ase desires her.

Stubbornness brings either greater humiliation or greater honor.

_—_

| 

_~The Saga of Hrafnkel Freysgothi_  
  
---|---  
  
 

Ardith sat cross-legged next to her friends in the early morning chill.She was more comfortable with the garment that Ase had provided for her, despite it being rather too large. She couldn’t make out the meaning of the dream she’d had of the great cat and the wolf, but it troubled her. Wyne sat beside her and after a long stretch of waiting for her to tell him what was wrong, he simply demanded, “Alright then, what’s gotten to you?”

She shot him a sour look.“I’m sorry, should I be in a better mood?”

Jetta chuckled on the other side of her. “No, it just seems as though there is something very particular on your mind.”

“Yes, how to get off of this ship.”

Wyne wasn’t convinced. “Oh, only that?”

Ardith sighed irritably.“Do you know she thought we were Christians?”

Wyne snorted. “The offense!”

Ardith gave him a sidelong glance.

Jetta stretched his legs out before him.“Well, in fairness, most of Suth-Saexe is Christian.”

“But Haedwalle had no church. Surely that was obvious.” 

“Anyway, what does that matter?” Jetta persisted.“So what if she thought you were Christian?”

Ardith shrugged.Her anger was unfocused; she hated Christians, but she also hated Ase and didn’t want to have anything at all in common with her, much less sharing gods.Although, she supposed the shared gods had made it easier when Caja had come to live with them. 

The waters were choppy that morning.Ardith and Wyne had fully adjusted to the roll of the sea, but Jetta was still not quite himself.Brida came around as the day wore on and handed each of them some smoked meat and some bread.They all wolfed it down, and Jetta seemed less ashen after that.

In truth, everything she had said to Wyne was true.She was still trying to find a way off of the ship, and she was indeed offended at having been taken for a pushy, narrow, overzealous Christian.But what had burrowed itself under her skin was the dream she’d had; the wolf and the cat curling up together in so familiar and loving a manner. Ardith was not one given to visions or dreams that she ascribed to the gods, but the coincidence was too great. That she dreamt of the two animals that just happened to be their two _fylgjur_ could not be mere chance, that much was clear.The meaning of it was less clear.

 _What is it I am meant to draw from this, Freya?_ she wondered.

 

*****

 

From watching carefully, Ardith had divined that the big blond man named Bjorn was Ase’s second, and that the woman Hilde was either his wife or his lover.At the helm was Ingrid, the sinewy brunette, who, along with Bjorn, seemed to be watching Ardith and her friends with particular care.Any plan she might hatch to get them out of here would necessarily have to involve distracting them or otherwise removing them from play. 

She noted that the one called Harald irritated Ase a great deal. She found it difficult to tell his place in the crew, but she had seen him leading a flank at Haedwalle.He was probably the one to worry about most. He would give her menacing looks and grin at her, and she would glare back to let him know she didn’t fear himand didn’t care what he thought he was going to do.Clearly, it was nothing, so long as Ase was in charge.

Ardith didn’t understand why Ase was so protective of her. She wondered whether the rumors about the Danes were untrue, or whether Ase was perhaps more merciful than most. Perhaps it was out of some respect for her stout heart in battle.She thought again of the dream, and then dismissed it from her mind.

Ase did not visit her again until it was nearly afternoon, by Ardith’s reckoning.It seemed, from what she had been able to observe, that Ase was in command of the vessel during first watch and then also present for much of second, sleeping intermittently during the cold nights at sea.Her observations led her to conclude that they must be sleeping some twenty people below deck, and that they must simply be stacked together like firewood in there.

She came with ale, and offered it.Ardith accepted, drank, and then looked at Ase.“ _Og mine brødre?”_

Ase chuckled and shook her head.“ _Dine venner,_ ” she said.“ _De er ikke dine brødre_.”

Ardith frowned.“ _Mine brødre,_ ” she said again, gesturing to Wyne and Jetta.

Ase shook her head.“ _Dine venner,_ ” she insisted.

Ardith thought. It seemed clear that Ase understood that they were not her brothers and was offering another, more appropriate word. Of course, it could also be a joke at her expense.

Ase gestured around at Bjorn, Ingrid and the others. “ _Mine venner_.”

“Your crew?” Ardith wondered.The word rang a bell in the back of her mind, _venner_ ; she had heard it from Caja but wasn’t sure of its meaning.

Then Ase gestured to her, and then to herself and said, slowly and with emphasis, “ _Du og jeg er venner._ ”

Friends, Ardith thought.The crew were Ase’s friends.Wyne and Jetta were her friends.And Ase was seeming to suggest that they, too, were friends.Ardith tried not to laugh.“You killed my father,” she said, still smiling at her.“And you burned my town.And now you say we are … _venner_.”

Ase nodded with approval.Apparently her pronunciationpassed muster.

Ase then knelt down and untied Ardith’s wrists.“What can you want now?” Ardith demanded, knowing that Ase couldn’t understand her.

Ase called over her shoulder, and one of the crew appeared with two wooden swords.

“This again?”Ardith sighed heavily.She shook her head.“ _Nej._ ”That was one word she didn’t have to think too hard to remember.

“ _Ja_ ,” Ase insisted, grinning.She thrust one of the swords in Ardith’s direction. 

She knew of course that Ase would just start flicking her with the wood until she grew annoyed and fought back, so, grumbling, she took the weapon in hand and faced her.

Ardith was feeling a bit stronger than the day before, and she made an aggressive beat against Ase right away.When she feinted right though, and then tried to dart left, Ase was able to move aside and elbow her in the back as she stumbled past. Her ribs were still sore from the day before. Ardith dropped her wooden sword.

Ase, smiling, paused, waited for Ardith to pick up her sword, and then beckoned for her to try again.Ardith frowned, faced her, and tried to determine her best move.Ase fought right-handed, Ardith ought to be able to get at her with that move, since she wielded her sword with her left.She determined to try again, only to meet with the same results.Frustrated, sheput her hands on her hips and glared at Ase.“How do you keep beating that move?” she demanded, not expecting a real response.

Ase smiled, handed her the sword again and moved beside her.Then, she crouched down, and demonstrated the feint left.But instead of darting right, she backhanded the pommel of her sword into the air.She looked at Ardith with a questioning look.Ardith stood there for a moment, and thenduplicated the movement as Ase had shown her.

What was she doing?Why was she trying to make Ardith better?

Ase looked pleased, but shook her head.Thrusting the wooden sword into her belt, she came close behind Ardith and took her extended sword arm, adjusting its angle.She said something in Danish, which Ardith didn’t understand, but clearly Ase was correcting her swing. As she held her arm the way Ase showed her, Ase withdrew, sliding her hand back up Ardith’s arm in a deliberate way, then running the back of her fingers down Ardith’s ribcage, which was exposed because she was extended for a lunge.

Ardith shivered. It was so gentle, it didn’t even disturb her bruises. It was an overly familiar way to touch someone, especially someone you were fighting with.

Ase took a stance in front of her, invited her to come and attack again.Ardith moved in for a beat, and then attempted the movement as Ase had demonstrated to her.She struck the pommel of her wooden sword into Ase’s stomach, and Ase stumbled back, giving her a dazzling smile.

“ _Meget godt!_ ” Ase exclaimed.Ardith wasn’t sure what that meant, but Ase looked pleased with her.She pressed forward, and their wooden swords clacked and struck against each other, beating time.“ _Du har en frygtelig nåde,_ ” she said breathlessly.

Ardith came in low, but Ase was consistently ready.Once, she caught Ardith’s little wooden blade on her iron hand and swept it away.

Ardith stamped her foot on the wooden deck.“Now that’s not fair!”

Ase chuckled, and returned the sword. 

They went several rounds more, until Ardith’s blood was singing in her veins.The swords were only wood, but she was fighting Ase, and that was all she wanted.It felt good.Her heart pounded in her chest.They chased each other back and forth across the deck, sometimes nearly tripping over rigging or stumbling into barrels of mead (of which, she noticed, there were quite a number).Even when Ase had her pinned against the mainmast, she didn’t mind so much.It was the closest thing to fun she’d had in days.She didn’t know why Ase wanted this from her, but she almost didn’t care.

“ _Udbytte_ ,” Ase panted, pressing her back to the hard wood of the mainmast.She looked fatigued, but pleasantly, and she was all lit with an incomprehensible joy.

“I don’t know what that means,” Ardith panted in reply. 

And then she saw. It came into focus, clear as day, the look that Ase had for her.The familiar way she had touched her earlier.She licked her lips once, dropped her sword, and put her hands up, smiling faintly.“Alright then,” she said quietly. 

 _“Udbytte?”_ Ase repeated.

Ardith shrugged. _“Udbytte,”_ she agreed.Who cared what it meant, it made Ase happy to hear her say it. And a happy Ase was worth a great deal.

Her breath shallow, Ardith stumbled back to where her friends were tied.They all got some ale for her troubles.Ase lingered and let her drink without hurrying to tie her up again.

Ardith’s heart was racing like a rabbit in her chest as she drank, gazing at Ase over the lip of her tin cup.She felt the flush in her cheeks as Ase looked back at her.

“I’ve worked it out,” she whispered.

“Worked what out?” Wyne asked.

She took a long draught of ale.“Why Ase is being … kind to me.Why she protects me from Harald, and gives me what I ask.”

“Why?”

Ardith turnedto him then, her eyes lit with the first real excitement she’d felt in days.“She wants me.”

To her other side, she heard the sound of Jetta nearly spitting out his ale. “What?”

Ardith’s lips curled with mischief.“I didn’t see it before.But I know the look. Only, I’m used to seeing it from men, not women, so it took a bit for me to recognize it. She wants me.”

Both the young men fell silent for a moment.

“It’s good news, lads. First good news we’ve had in days. She wants me. Now we’ve got something to work with.”

She was annoyed that they did not look nearly as happy about this as she felt they ought to.Wyne was the first to speak.“But,” he began delicately, “what do you mean to do with this? Apart fromgetting us a bit better treatment while we’re aboard, about to be sold as slaves?” He squinted at Ardith.“And don’t you dare breathe a word about revenge, Ardith. If you mean to bed her just to kill her, you’ll get yourself killed and the two of us will be no better off for it! You’re not leaving Jetta and me to fend for ourselves on a Danish dragon boat!”

Ardith chuckled. “Of course not, _mine venner_.” She rolled the Danish word around in her mouth. “You are like my brothers, and the only way that we escape this is together.”

A long quiet passed between them.Ardith caught Ase’s eye again and smiled at her.Ase smiled back. Ardith understood enough about seducing a boy, and she supposed this would not be much different. A look, a smile, a look away. A tilt of the head. All the same, wasn’t it?

Ase drew closer, knelt down, smiled at Ardith, stroked her cheek once. Ardith didn’t flinch this time. She let those calloused fingertips brush down the side of her face, closed her eyes, leaned into them.It startled her a little; she had not taken note of it the first time Ase had touched her in this manner because her chest was burning with rage and everything in her blood was screaming survival.Ase’s touch was more gentle than she would have expected from a brutish, pillaging warrior. _Well,_ she thought wryly, _she is not Harald, after all. She probably has her pick of the Danish girls who prefer the company of women._

Ase moved to tie her hands again.“ _Nej_ ,” Ardith protested weakly.It was paramount that she get Ase to trust her enough to let her move about the ship freely, or they would never escape.

“ _Ikke endnu,_ ” Ase responded, shaking her head.“ _Måske snart. Nu være en god pige.”_

 _God pige,_ Ardith thought. She didn’t know the rest of what Ase had said, but knew those words. _Good girl,_ she mused. She sighed and offered her wrists to Ase, gazing at her with a little smirk on her lips.“You know we are going to have to do something about this tying up business if you ever hope to bed me,” she told her.

Wyne snorted beside her. “She doesn’t understand you.”

Ardith glanced at him sidelong.“I think she takes my meaning.” She held still while Ase tied the heavy, scratchy rope around her wrists again.“See?” she said.“ _Jeg er en god pige._ ” _I am a good girl._

Ase’s eyes found hers and the effect of those words was unmistakable.She looked at Ardith with approval, but also something like intoxication at the thought of what it might mean that Ardith was a “good girl.”She said something in Danish, clearly meant for one of the other crewmen, and Ardith heard a few of them respond with laughter.But Ase’s eyes never left Ardith’s, and for a moment, Ardith shook inside at the strength of the hunger in Ase’s look.

After what felt like a very long time of gazing at one another, Ase stood and strolled away, barking orders at someone or other.

“Alright, then,” Jetta demanded.“Out with it. You’ve a plan, haven’t you.”

Ardith smiled.“Not exactly.Not yet.But I’ve got at least a dozen barrels of mead and a jarl who’d like to get into my knickers, and that’s a start.”

 


	24. A Lantern That Gives No Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aguri begins to study Zen

“There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. There will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.” 

_—_

| 

_Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai_  
  
---|---  
  
 

Aguri spent some days resting and healing properly.In that time, Myoge brought her food and texts to read.After several days, Aguri seemed physically improved, but her mood was restive and often shifted between sullen and eager. 

One afternoon as they walked to a lecture at the _hattō_ , Aguri observed a very young man, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, holding a samurai bow and firing arrows into a straw target near the training yard. He landed an arrow in the center, and then neatly fired three more in a very tight cluster around it.

“Who is that?” Aguri wondered.

“That is Jōji.”

“He’s very gifted.”

“Yes, he is.” 

It made her feel restive again. “I want to spar,” she complained.

“So do I,” Myoge responded, “but you must be fully healed.We are not indulging your pride, _ronin_. You only hurt yourself when we do.”

“Stop calling me _ronin_.”

“You are not a nun.Not yet.”

Aguri looked chastened.They waited another few weeks.

 

 

****

 

 

“So I cannot spar, but I can rake?” Aguri demanded grumpily.

“Yes.The garden doesn’t rake back.” She thrust the rake into Aguri’s hands and pointed to Suzue, who was at the other end of the garden, raking.“See how she does it.She takes her time. She approaches with calm.She enters with the intent to exist purely for the act of raking. In that respect, her technique is perfect.”

“Nothing is perfect,” Aguri pointed out, despite having to admit that Suzue’s lines were incredibly straight and graceful. 

Myoge chuckled.“Yes, that is also part of Zen.See?You’re learning already.” 

Aguri squinted at her for a moment, her mouth screwed up as though wanting to object, but trying to maintain her dignity.They had discussed at great length that it would not do for her to behave like a petulant child every time she didn’t understand something. She set to her task, watching the fingers of the rake come crunching through the gravel, leaving a little wake of lines.She compared hers to Suzue’s.They were not as clean.

She tried again.She changed her grip on the rake and dragged it again through the gravel.After a few attempts, she looked again. Still, she was unsatisfied.

Myoge looked up from a small green shrub she was trimming.“It is harder than it looks.” She smiled a little.

“What’s so funny?” Aguri demanded.

Myoge shook her head.“Do you know why you’re having trouble?”

“No!” Aguri exclaimed, and threw down the rake.“Why?”

Still smiling, Myoge pointed to Suzue.“I don’t know either. But you can ask Suzue. She’s obviously very good at it. You have someone right beside you that you can ask for help.”

Aguri put her hands on her hips, flushing with frustration.“This was a lesson.”

Myoge nodded. “Yes.Did you learn it?”

 

 

*******

 

“…and then I asked them if they wanted to check whether you were in the kitchen, slicing _konnyaku_.”

Aguri’s face was puzzled, and it amused Myoge a little.“I don’t know how to slice _konnyaku_.”

“That’s why it’s funny.”Myoge slid open the exterior door to the kitchens and led Aguri inside.“But today you’re going to learn.”

“This is not sparring,” Aguri complained.

“Did you think that was all this would be?”

“No, I expected there would be reading, too.”

“And there has been.”

“Yes, and none of it has made any sense to me.”

Myoge led her to a station along a wide wooden countertop.She plunked a roundish, lumpy root vegetable that looked like a rotten apple onto the wooden surface in front of her and then demonstrated how it was to be peeled with the edge of the knife and then thinly sliced. “Do you think you can do that?”

“Of course,” Aguri responded. She was a little offended at the suggestion that she couldn’t handle such a simple task, clearly. But she grew frustrated, her brow furrowing, as her slices came off in varying thickness, not as neat as Myoge’s had been. One of them fell apart under the knife. She glanced around.“There are only women in here,” she complained.

“Yes. And tomorrow it will be only men. I told you, we are not like other orders.”

Aguri put the _konnyaku_ aside and tried with another one.She took more care this time with the removal of the skin.“Cooking,” she grumbled, slicing more slowly and with less pressure this time, “reading, gardening, I suppose laundry is next. I thought this was a martial order.” 

Her results were better, but continued to vary.

“It is. It is also a community in which everyone must participate to provide. When you’re ready, sparring can be part of your day.But not till then.”

“Who decides when I’m ready?”

“I do.”

Aguri frowned and tried another _konnyaku_.

 

******

 

Myoge considered herself a natural teacher. When she had been a teenager in school, she remembered a younger girl who had informally become a _kohai_ of hers, idolizing her and asking her for help in her writing and poetry appreciation.She had been easy to teach, if a bit tiresome with her constant questions and relentless adoration.

Aguri, by contrast, was a great deal of work.So much of this task involved pulling the great stones out of the wall of Aguri’s pride, one by one.Myoge found her exhausting at times with her stubbornness. But beyond that, Aguri burned to understand. She wanted to change, to transform.Myoge had never seen someone apply themselves so diligently, even if she was complaining the entire time she did so.

They sat together now, in the soft grass, in the shade of the white pine where Aguri had hid herself when Noboru’s retainers came.“I do not understand the purpose of this.”

“You need to see for yourself that all that you believe yourself to be is an illusion.”

Aguri closed her eyes. “I feel perfectly real to myself.”

“It is a very good illusion.”Myoge gazed at her for a long moment.Aguri sat with back erect, eyes closed, not the least bit serene. How far she had to go. Myoge imagined how beautiful Aguri would be when she released herself, uncurled her fingers from their white knuckled grip on the stories she had told herself about who she was.“The illusion can even be beautiful.”

Aguri opened her eyes and looked at her. “Is it?”

“It can be.”Myoge leaned forward and gazed at her, smiling faintly.“A teacher of Konjen Roshi’s once said, ‘I sat there, the mountains and me, until only the mountains remained.’ Do you understand what that means?”

Aguri shook her head.“It sounds like nonsense.”

Myoge chuckled.“Yes, Zen nonsense.”A quiet passed between them; at the edge of their hearing, the shouts and wooden clacking of shinai echoed in the yard where some of the monastics were training. “You are too caught up in all those things which you hold to be essential to yourself. You’re constantly thinking about them; your honor, your role as wife, as general, as woman, as warrior, as friend, lover, and so on. This is normal, of course.Sometimes the wind can blow dried leaves across the grass in autumn, and they might happen to form a shape that is like something we recognize; a horse, a wheel, a lantern. But it’s only leaves.A horse you can’t ride, a wheel you can’t put on a wagon, a lantern that gives no light, no warmth.That’s the self.It’s leaves that have formed an accidental pattern, a pattern that will blow away in the wind.”

Aguri looked desolate at this thought. “Then what can be left, when the leaves blow away?”

“What indeed? Only the wind.” Myoge smiled.Aguri’s mind was keen.She would understand soon enough. 

 

******

 

Soon enough, as it happened, was not coming soon enough.

“What do you mean,” Aguri demanded, “concentrate only on the present moment?”

“Do not think about the past.Do not think about the future.Let go of the weight of your memories. Put down your fears about what is yet to come. Be here, now, in the world.”

Aguri groaned.She had been reading, Myoge knew, because every day she had questions, tons of them, and Myoge was patiently talking her through the answers. She stood up in the middle of the small room that they now shared, loose pages falling from her lap and scattering across the floor like those autumn leaves.They formed no pattern. “Who thinks of neither the past nor the future?Only children!”

Myoge smiled. “You’re not wrong.But you do, too, it’s just that you don’t realize it.”

“What does that mean?”

Myoge stood up.She had known Aguri’s intellect would prove to be a challenge, because she would absorb everything she read and then pick it apart. This, too, was a defense, a stone that needed to be pulled out of the wall.She drew close to Aguri, and tugged at the shoulder of the robes she wore.“Slip this down a little, please.”

Aguri hesitated, then nodded once in deference, and arranged her robe to slip it down over her shoulder to show where she was healing.

The wound in Aguri’s shoulder had closed up.She would bear a scar there; Myoge traced her fingers over the raised pink flesh that was puckered up over where the sword had passed through.“Closed up well enough.”She listened to Aguri’s breathing, steady and even.She placed her palm against the wound, then, and pressed gently. Aguri’s breath hitched slightly.“How does that feel?”

Aguri shook her head. “It doesn’t feel like anything.”

But Myoge frowned.It was clearly still uncomfortable to feel pressure there.There was still healing happening on the inside. “Why would you lie to me about that?”

“I want to spar again,” Aguri admitted after a moment, flushing.

Myoge understood.She was anxious to do what she was good at, exist where she was comfortable. It was a familiar struggle.She sighed with resignation.Her hand still rested over Aguri’s bare, wounded shoulder.“Left handed, with _shinai_. No _iado_ afterwards.”

 

*****

 

Aguri had achieved fame prior to her marriage to Noboru. While _onna-bugeisha_ were surely not unheard of, neither were female samurai seen in every sake bar in Kyoto.So her exploits received considerable attention. The sixteen year old samurai girl who defeated the champion of the Watanabe School? Who could resist a story like that? Before Noboru’s descent into brutality, Myoge had often wondered at the reputation of the warrior they called Amaterasu’s Hand. 

It stood to reason, she thought, that Aguri clung to this reputation as a warrior more than anything else. However, she also had divined something when they sparred in the courtyard. Aguri was in her purest state of being when she had a weapon in hand.

The pair of them walked with quiet footsteps through the trees outside the walls of the zendo.“Where are we going?Why not the courtyard?” Aguri was her usual self.

“Too many questions.” 

A chastened silence followed as their feet made nearly soundless paths in the grass and pine needles and the damp maple leaves that lay on the ground.The sun was creeping down from its zenith and its light filtered through the leaves. 

“What did Ishiwara Tetsu tell you about Japanese steel?” Myoge asked her. She had asked this when they first met. Aguri had seemed either unwilling or unable to answer the question.

“He told me there were two kinds of Japanese steel. A firm kind, and a flexible kind.”

“And what do you think that means, regarding its true purpose?”

“I don’t remember.”Aguri said this a bit too quickly.

They emerged into a small grove of cherry trees in full bloom, their pink blossoms trembling on their damp black boughs.The cool, damp spring still hung on everything.Myoge supplied Aguri with a _shinai_ , and walked to the center of the clearing.They faced one another, and her heart pounded with anticipation.Aguri was in better shape this time.Myoge was on edge with the thrill of waiting to face her again.It felt strange.She had spent a decade training herself away from such feelings.

They bowed to one another.

Aguri was lethal and graceful, her movements fluid and confident. Myoge’s blood rose to the challenge of facing such a warrior.It had been so long since she had faced someone who made her work this hard.Their wood struck each other, clacking and whipping in the late afternoon.They would advance, retreat, lunge in and spin away.It was as natural as breathing.Aguri’s whole being was luminous, and Myoge reflected her joy back to her as they circled each other. 

“You have a fearsome grace,” Aguri panted as they engaged one another.

“It comes from Zen,” Myoge responded, her shinai a blur that whipped and struck against Aguri’s.

“Explain Zen,” Aguri demanded, swinging low and inside.

“ _This_ is Zen!”Myoge blocked her and danced away.Aguri’s _shinai_ struck a low hanging branch and her blow showered cherry blossoms down around them.They both paused in sheer wonder at it, and then Myoge lunged.Aguri recovered her footing in time, and pushed back. 

“I don’t understand!” Aguri pressed forward, and more wooden sounds bounced off the trees and away into the mountains.

Myoge found herself on the defensive as Aguri’s attack became more focused.She allowed Aguri to drive her backwards until her back was pressed to the trunk of a very old cherry tree.The damp chill of the wood leached through her robe as she and Aguri stood there, _shinai_ locked together.

“You do,” Myoge insisted, panting.

“Yield,” Aguri pressed. “And then explain.”

Myoge did not yield.“When we fought just now,” she explained, breathless, “were you thinking as you chose each movement, each blow, each cut, or did you move on instinct?”

Aguri stared at her in confusion but did not ease of the pressure of her _shinai_ against Myoge’s.“I moved on instinct.”

“Was it joyful?”

“Yes.”

“Was it perfect?”

Recognition began to dawn in Aguri’s eyes.“Yes.”

“Were you anywhere except in this moment with me?”

Aguri’s breath was laboring as well.“No…”

“Then,” Myoge told her with a little smirk, “you understand Zen.I told you you did.”

She saw the early light of surprise, the first stirrings of understanding in Aguri’s eyes.

And then Myoge shifted her weight and brought the hilt of her _shinai_ swinging around, catching Aguri lightly on the temple.She watched the Aguri stumble back, more annoyed that she had been bested again than in any actual pain. She leapt forward and swung in with her shinai, stopping just short of Aguri’s neck.

“You’re dead,” she murmured.

Aguri caught her footing, inspected Myoge’s face for a long moment, and then with a sly smile, she reached up with her _shinai_ and struck another branch.Blossoms showered down around them in the pale yellow light of afternoon.They spiraled around on themselves in the light breeze, translucent pale pink in the sun.

Myoge remained still, dwelling in their beauty.

 


	25. Pointless Theater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two standoffs on two sides, with Alex, Astra and Kara in the middle.

 

When Alex entered the containment room, Astra was sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, whispering quietly to herself.She paused in front of the plexi, not wanting to interrupt what looked much like prayer.After a moment, Astra opened her eyes and looked at her. Alex felt a twinge at how haunted her eyes seemed, but also, even now, how resolute.How unbent and unbroken.

“Sorry to interrupt your praying.”

Astra shrugged.“I do not think Rao can hear me out here. But then I am not sure he ever did. Perhaps I should try talking to your Buddha.”

Alex tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.“It doesn’t quite work that way. But if you can find peace in the contemplation, by all means.”She stood awkwardly for a moment as they shared a long look full of… Alex didn’t know what.Grief.Distrust.Hope. “So this is it.”She glanced over at the small table in front of the cell, at the chessboard sitting on it with a game half-played.

Astra acknowledged her look.“We will finish another time.” She almost seemed regretful.

Alex felt a tug in her chest at the thought.Astra played well.Her intellect had grasped the rules immediately and taken to it so thoroughly. And wasn’t all of this a game of chess, really?“I’ll save you the trouble.Your queen is doing too much work.You should have castled three moves ago.I’ll have you in checkmate in five.”

“I appreciate your confidence.” Astra stood.

Alex’s family had taken her and Kara to the zoo many times when she was younger, and although by that time, the zoos no longer kept animals in cages, she was still struck by how limited the enclosures were.Most especially for those regal cats, the lions and tigers.There was something fundamentally wrong about them being contained that way, no matter how big or lushly landscaped the enclosure.Even as a child, she’d felt it. She felt that way now, looking at Astra, after all she had been put through, standing with her back straight and her dignity intact.

“Well, you’ll just have to teach Non how to play.”

Astra smiled wryly. “He is less inclined to appreciate your culture than I am.”

Alex shook her head.She still couldn’t lose the feeling that somehow, this was wrong.This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to go.The trouble was, she couldn’t quite see what it was supposed to be instead, and wasn’t sure she could change it even if she did.

“I thought your General Lane was not going to agree to the prisoner exchange.”

Alex shrugged.“Well, he hasn’t. I expect he won’t. We’re doing it anyway.”

Astra stiffened.“Insubordination?”

“Doing the right thing.”

“Right action, right intent?”Alex was not surprised that those words resonated with Astra.She was more surprised that she remembered them.

“Something like that.”Alex walked closer to the plexi.Two more black-clad agents entered the room.She held up a pair of titanium cuffs with kryptonite lining that glowed green.“I’m going to come in there, and we’re going to put these on you. I don’t particularly want to hurt you, but don’t try anything stupid.”

Astra’s look was hard to read.“You have treated me with honor. I will honor it in kind.”

Alex opened the cell.

 

 

*******

 

 

Astra had not worn cuffs in some time.Not since she entered Fort Rozz and was escorted to her cell.Their cold weight chilled her someplace deeper than her wrists.

She walked the dark, glossy halls of the DEO, with Alex Danvers on one side of her, and her neice on the other, with a small complement of agents in black behind them.She wondered if things would come to blows when they dealt with this General Lane.Astra did not want to see his face again.But she half hoped that if it did indeed come to blows, that her niece would have the sense to release her from her bonds. She would give him his just reward for what he had done.

They walked into the war room, and Lane turned to face them.He was an old soldier, a kind Astra had run into before. He had a species of honor, but he was the enemy.Alex Danvers was also the enemy, at least nominally, but she operated on a different kind of honor, a more humane kind.Astra was grateful for it. 

The screens glowed above the quiet hum of the power converters, and the room fell still.Lane gestured for four of his men to stand beside him.“Just where,” he demanded, “do you think you’re taking this prisoner?”

“Well, sir,” Alex said with breezy confidence, “we’re exchanging her for our commanding officer. You got what you wanted out of her.I think we’re done here.”

Lane bristled. “We _do not_ negotiate with terrorists.” He was forceful. Astra kept her expression neutral but everything in her wanted to break out of her bonds and choke the man.

“Respectfully, sir,” Alex went on, “this is not your facility.” She glanced at Kara and back at Lane.“You want to stop us? Go ahead and try.”

Lane’s men stood their ground, weapons brandished.Astra was confident that Kara could handle all four of them without trouble.Her niece was superior to the humans.Most of them, anyhow.This Alex Danvers was another story.She was a curiosity.

Lane ordered his men forward, but they hesitated.They looked at Kara, dressed in her blue pressure suit with the crest of her noble house on the chest, and the highly impractical but visually impressive red cape, and Astra saw no commitment in their eyes. 

“Sorry, sir,” the lead lieutenant finally said after a long, uncomfortable moment.“She… she saved our lives.”He gestured to Kara. “I can’t.”

It was pointless theater, Astra thought.Kara could have made a mess of them instantly and not even bruised a knuckle.But then, it showed Lane that he was not even fully in command of his own men. It stripped him of his authority.And that satisfied her.Well played, she thought, looking at Alex with something bordering on admiration.

 

****

 

Kara refused to sit in the back with Astra on the ride to the agreed-upon dropoff.

Alex and Astra remained there with the other agents.

Alex had so many questions.But she couldn’t begin to ask them. 

Astra looked at her after a moment of the van jostling them back and forth along the freeway.“I was surprised that it did not come to violence.”

Alex shook her head.“Enough blood’s already been spilled.Enough damage already done.”

Astra looked skeptical.“But you love the fight, do you not? The taste of combat?”

Alex thought.There had been a time when she did indeed love it for its own sake. Those days were mostly behind her, though. “I find honor in it.And satisfaction.”

Astra peered at her as though trying to see her through a fog. “But you fight with a fearsome grace. I have trained many soldiers. Such grace comes through love, not…satisfaction.”

Alex almost smiled.“You know, it’s just Zen.” Alex heard the question beneath Astra’s comment. Astra loved the fight. She wanted to know that Alex loved it too. The truth was complicated.

“Your Buddha.”

“Yes. Don’t think about the past.Don’t think about the future.Let go of the weight of your memories. Put down your fears about the future. Be here, now, in the world.” She looked at Astra. “The freedom that comes with that, that’s what gives me grace.”

Minutes passed in silence.They listened to the breathing of the traffic outside.

“I would enjoy facing you in a fair fight,” Astra said after a moment.

Alex nodded.

“I would win, but you would be a challenge, I think.”

Alex smirked.“Too bad we’ll never know.” 

They arrived at the piers some time later.“It’s time.” 

Astra was made of stern stuff indeed.That she could walk tall after what she had endured spoke volumes. Alex had to admire that in her. Kara had her own unique grief when it came to Astra, but Alex felt a heartache every time she looked at Astra that she could barely explain.

The air was cool coming in off of the water, and the lights from the cranes and various rigs obscured the stars.She smelled oil, and salt water, and heard the ocean’s sighs just at the edge of her hearing. An odd mix of the foul and the beautiful. “You took a great risk in making this choice,” Astra commented as they exited the van.

“Well,” Alex responded, “I need you and your people to see that not all of us are like General Lane. Maybe, if you see as more than low animals, but instead as people with intellect and courage and honor, we can find a common ground and end this war.”

Astra’s lips curled in a faint smirk, and she said with an exhausted humor, “You sound like my niece.”

“Yeah.She has an effect on people.”

 

****

 

Astra wanted to say more, but she looked up and saw Non descending, with a cohort of others gifted with flight.Two of them carried Alex’s commander, the Martian.He appeared underwhelming in his human form.She had not fought a true Martian, but heard of their strength and bravery. He looked small, now.

Non led a flank of three while the other two held back with the Martian, still restraining him.The tension was thick.She knew Non’s mind.She saw him evaluating the cohort of humans and judging how long it would take the group he had brought with him to wipe them off of the planet. His eyes settled on Kara for a moment. “You have chosen the wrong side.”

Kara lifted her chin and stared back. “I’m on the side of what’s right. Give us Hank.”

He snorted.“You’re not in charge. That little human is.” He gestured at Alex, smiling the cold, savage smile she’d seen on him when he intended to kill. “Give me my wife, human.”

“When you give us Hank.” Alex was calm, fearless. Astra felt a strange pride in the human’s unflappable posture.It was a reaction she couldn’t understand in the moment but she would consider it later.

Non gestured to the two men, who brought the Martian forward, uncuffed him and released him.“Now, give me my wife.” He was more forceful this time.

Just as the pantomime in the DEO had shown Lane to be powerless, Non now planned a pantomime of his own. She saw it in his posture, knew the circuitry of his intentions. He intended to release the prisoner, take Astra back, and then rain destruction on the entire human cohort. He intended to tantalize them with the thought that they had agency here before ripping it away.

Alex uncuffed her.Astra gazed at her for a long moment. Then she walked to her husband, passing the Martian as he walked toward the humans.She came to him, embraced him, took in his familiar scent. Her pain was behind her now, and she was glad of it. But then she drew back, and looked up.

The entire group of her people had taken to the air now, gazing down on the humans with godlike disdain. The humans had readied their guns, but there was no way it would be anything but a slaughter, even with Kara and the Martian helping them.

“Husband,” she said quietly. “What is your intention?”

“To show them what it means to face a superior foe.”

She shook her head.She thought of Alex, her decency, the risk she had taken in order to do the honorable thing. She thought of the grief in her niece’s face each time they’d spoken. And she said to him, “Now is not the time.”

His displeasure was palpable. “Why?”

“Because we have given them our word that we would not. And our word is still worth something.”

Non took a breath, preparing to argue.

“Stand down,” she ordered. She felt the stiffness of command come into her spine, replacing the stiffness of residual pain.

“General, we have the advantage.”

“And we will again. Stand down.”

Non’s mouth was drawn downward and sour looking, and he swallowed his evident disgust at her orders, but he took them.“Stand down,” he called to his people. “We have recovered our general, and we will fight another day.” He looked at her as if to say, _Are you satisfied?_

And she was. She had given an order. He had followed it. She had repaid Alex’s honorable gesture with one of her own.And now, no longer owing the human a debt, she would be free to cut her down in battle without regret.

Rao knew, she had already accumulated enough regrets for a lifetime.


	26. Just A Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ase makes a concession. Ardith makes an attempt at seduction.

"It is better to fight with your enemies than be burned at home. And do not swear a false oath, because hard vengeance follows the breaking of truce. Do the right thing by dead men, be they dead from disease, by drowning, or by a weapon. Prepare their bodies with care. And do not trust any man, even though he is young, whose father or brother or close kinsman has been killed by you, often a wolf lies in a young son."

–The Saga of the Volsungs

 

“Ase!”

She sat bolt upright from her sleep, surrounded by a dozen or so of her crew from the second watch who were also sleeping.In the daylight that flooded her half-opened eyes, she saw a shadow shaped like Bjorn. 

“What is it, Bjorn?”

“We are at Helder.”

She heard urgency in his tone. And she heard Ardith’s voice shouting in English, mixed occasionally with the handful of Danish curses she knew. So that was probably bad.“And?”

“And Harald and Ingrid have already left the Nagelfar with the two Saxon lads.”

Ase spat a curse and stood up, picking her way across the stirring bodies on the deck and making her way toward where he stood. “He means to sell them,” she grumbled. “Next time, Bjorn, just skewer him where he stands.”

Bjorn stood aside, and followed her as she stomped across the deck and to the edge of the ship, which was drawn up beside the low dock at Helder, a small port on the Frisian coast where she and her crew often did business.Ardith, still tied to the capstan, was shouting at her.Ase understood none of it.She understood the urgency of it, though.She did not want her people sold.

Ase weighed this. She had ordered the stop here so that she and her men could gather additional provisions and perhaps do some trading. She knew that a couple of strong Saxon lads would indeed fetch a good price. But she had intended to hold them as gifts for the king, or perhaps to sell upon return to Langadalr.They were trophies, to be shown, in any case.

Ardith was still shouting at her English and gesturing wildly at the docks. Even this early in the morning, the merchants were already out, their cookfires smoking and their stalls open for business.

She could see from where she stood the trader with whom she was most fond of dealing, Jelke. He had several large baskets laden with various smoked meats, and others with bolts of fabric, and he appeared to be exchanging pleasantries with Harald. She put her hands on her hips and pointed a finger at Ardith.“Yes! I see that you are upset! But I cannot understand you, so you must stop shouting at me!”

Ardith seemed taken aback by the thunder in her voice and stopped shouting for a moment.

Jelke, as he dealt with many traveling merchants, spoke Frisian, Danish, English, and Frankish. He could help negotiate this situation.

“Bjorn, untie her. She is coming with me.”

“You’re going to sell her? After all this?”

“No,” she responded impatiently, “but Jelke speaks English, so he can tell me what in Odin’s name she’s saying.”

Ardith looked down with alarm as Bjorn began to untie her wrists.She looked up at Ase in confusion.Ase bent down.“It’s alright, Ardith. I’m not going to sell you to the Frisians.” She made her tone as soothing as she could, as gentle as warm spring water. “But I need you to come with me so that we can understand one another a little and perhaps even save your friends.”

“My friends,” Ardith repeated. She understood that much.

“Yes,” Ase said approvingly. She took Ardith’s hand and pulled the girl to her feet. “Your friends. It’s alright.” She took the length of rope and held it up in front of Ardith. “You will be a good girl, and you will walk with me. If you try to run away…”She pulled it taut a couple of times, and mimed wrapping it around Ardith’s neck. “…I don’t want to do it, but you will leave me no choice to put you on a leash as Harald has done to your friends.”

She wasn’t sure if the girl fully understood, but she cooperated. Ase took her by the arm and led her down from the ship, and up along the docks, keeping a proprietary hand on the girl’s arm. They walked down the creaking wooden dock to Jelke’s stall, where his fires burned and his baskets of salted provisions smelled strong.She called out to him.“Jelke!”

He looked away from Harald and Ingrid, and the two Saxon lads who were tied together on a length of rigging rope.“Ase!” He sauntered overand gave her a jovial slap on the shoulder.“How was Francia?”

“We have a hold full of plunder. I don’t suppose you mind that, do you?”

Jelke chuckled. “No love lost as far as I’m concerned. Last year my house was in Frisia, two months ago it was in Francia, and now it’s in Frisia again. Any trouble you make for the Frankish is fine with me.” He looked at Ardith, and then back over at Harald and Ingrid.“So, it looks like you went as far as Suth-Sæxe this time.”

She nodded. “Yes. And I see Harald is trying, without my permission, to sell you the slaves we took.”

Jelke grinned and wagged a finger at Harald. “Always getting into trouble, that one.”

“Yes, and one day it will send him to the bottom of the sea.”She looked at Jelke. “This one, this girl… is of… particular interest to me.”

Ardith shouted something over to the lads, who looked sufficiently cowed and afraid to even look up at her. 

Jelke looked between them again, and gave Ase a knowing smile. “So, not for sale, then.”

“No. She knows a few words of Danish, mostly curses. I need to tell her something in English.”

He nodded. “I see. So what is it, then?”

“I need to tell her that she has stolen my heart.”

Jelke coughed. “Well, Ase, she seems a bit more concerned about Harald selling her friends.”

Ase sighed.“Ask her if she truly cannot live without them.”

Jelke turned to Ardith and spoke to her in English.Ardith looked surprised that he could speak to her. She responded in English. Arjen turned back to Ase. “Well, she says they are like her brothers.”

Ase groaned.

Ardith went on speaking for a moment more.Ase waited.She didn’t like the amusement that played around Jelke’s mouth. He translated, “And she also says that if you allow Harald to sell them, that you will never see the inside of a bed with her unless it’s at the point of a sword.” He cackled. “Saxon women speak so plainly, it’s very refreshing.”

Ase swore under her breath. To bed her under threat was precisely the opposite of what she wanted. Her pride demanded that the girl desire her. For two people with a language barrier, they seemed to understand each other rather well.At the moment, irritatingly well. “If I am to keep them, then they must be of value to me. Ask her what value they have to me.”

Jelke translated and waited for Ardith’s response.As she spoke, he translated.“Jetta is a bowman… surely you have need of that… and Wyne is a skilled carpenter and maker of machines… he designed the… fire weapon that nearly defeated you at Haedwalle.”He gave her a questioning look.

Ase shrugged. “She was a little more difficult to take than I expected.”

Jelke looked at the Nagelfar, squinting. Ase knew he could see that the crew was noticeably thinned from its normal ranks.“Looks like more than a little.”

“Mind your fish and bread, Jelke,” Ase snapped.

He gestured vaguely. “Well, you heard what she said. So, you take a moment and let me know if you want to trade with me or not.”

At this moment, Harald held up a piece of jewelry that Jelke had been showing him. “Look, Ase!” he called out to her.The metalwork was delicate, a filligree of gold, and red and white lacquer. It was surely a fit gift for a king. It would please him just as much as a pair of healthy Saxon slaves.“Jelke says he can trade this for the two lads.What do you think?”

“Less mouths, less trouble,” Ingrid added.

“They have not been very much trouble,” Ase responded. It was true. Ardith had been far more trouble than either of them. She looked at Ardith again, who was waiting for an answer. She would most probably regret this moment, but she raised her iron hand, pointed back toward the Nagelfar, and said, “Harald, Ingrid. Take them back.”

Harald stiffened. “You’re not serious.”

Ase’s arm remained extended. “Take them back. You did not ask my permission before trying to sell them.”

“So we have to keep them just because you want to fuck the girl?” Ingrid demanded.

“We have to keep them because they are of value to us beyond that.”

Everyone held still for a moment.

Ase’s eyes bored into Harald’s.“Are we going to have a problem, Harald?”

He glared back at her for several painful seconds. Then he cast the jewelry on Jelke’s table with disgust and looked at Ingrid. “You heard her. We take them back.” 

They marched back to the ship, dragging the two lads at the end of their rope. Ase heaved a long sigh as they walked away. 

“Harald didn’t seem too happy,” Jelke observed.

“He didn’t even want to take slaves in the first place. It’s not his decision.”

“Too bad. I could have gotten a good price for them a bit further inland. Hope you don’t have a mutiny on your hands now.”

Ase shrugged. “I’ll probably have to stab him again. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Jelke snorted. “So, what more can I do for you?”

Ase pointed to several baskets of food: smoked meats, bread, and some potatoes. “We’ll take those. What do you want for them?”

“What have you got?”

Ase smiled. “What haven’t we got? Christian relics? Weapons? Mead?”

“Coin is best.”

“Silver?”

Jelke held up fingers to indicate how many he wanted. Ase nodded. “Fine. Send one of your lads with the baskets and I’ll have the money for you.”

Jelke plucked a strip of smoked meat from the basket, tore it in half, and handed a piece to Ardith and Ase each. “It’s a good batch.”

Ase tore into it. It was particularly good. “What’s different?”

“Frankish spices. Turns out the bastards are good for something after all.”

Ase grinned.She saw Ardith devouring hers with gusto. She was hungry. “Jelke, before I go, will you tell me how to say to her that she has stolen my heart?”

Jelke rubbed his hands together.“Alright, this is what you say.Listen carefully.” And he began speaking in English, words that Ase did not recognize. But it seemed to go on a bit too long, and then she noticed Ardith flush bright red and nearly spit out her food.

Ase punched him lightly in the chest. “Fine, you Frisian prick, don’t tell me. I’ll have the money for your man back at the Nagelfar.”

Jelke laughed to himself as she walked away, still holding Ardith by the arm.

 

 

***

 

 

Ardith walked along beside Ase, back to the ship, cheeks still warm from the merchant’s ribald words, and heart still pounding from the terror of nearly losing Wyne and Jetta to the Frisian marketplace. She couldn’t bear the thought of living among the Danes alone.

Once back on the ship, she could see that Wyne and Jetta were tied to the capstan again.Ase was speaking to her in Danish, and she picked out a word here or there (“home,” “bread,” “good”), but didn’t understand most of it.She looked around at the crew moving about, making room in the hold for the baskets that would be coming up from the docks.She looked at Ase standing beside her. She took the cup of ale offered, and sipped it while they stared at each other. 

Ase’s mood was hard to read. Ardith had divined that she was not entirely pleased about overriding Harald’s decision. Ardith needed to push further if she was going to win enough of Ase’s trust to orchestrate an escape. She set her cup down atop a nearby barrel. “You did a good thing today,” she said, stepping closer to Ase. “Keeping my friends. I should thank you.”

Ase looked at her, set her cup aside, and stroked Ardith’s shoulder.Her fingertips caressed in a way that felt as though she already knew Ardith’s skin beneath the rough cloth, her thumb absently stroking through the fabric; Ardith couldn’t help shivering at the intimacy of it. _I will have to give her something, now,_ Ardith thought. _Just kiss her, just a kiss, it means nothing, perhaps it will be enough._

She let her fingers trace up the front of Ase’s _kyrtill_ , fiddling with the neckline for a moment, before drawing a tentative path up the side of her neck. _Perhaps it won’t be so unpleasant,_ she thought, _she is a handsome woman after all, and perhaps I can close my eyes and pretend I’m with someone else._

But she couldn’t summon to mind anyone that she wished she could kiss. So she placed her hands on the side of Ase’s face, closed her eyes, rocked up on her toes, and kissed her once, briefly, on the mouth. It was so quick, she barely felt it.

But then she felt Ase’s hand on the back of her neck, and felt her other arm encircling her waist, and felt herself being drawn closer. The Dane’s body was warm, and strong, and she smelled of sea air, and smoke, and pitch. Ardith opened her eyes to find Ase looking at her with an expression she could not have imagined; her eyes, usually bright as a serpent’s, looking drowsy and soft, and no wicked grin, but a faint smile curling the corners of her mouth.And then Ase tilted her head down, and pulled Ardith close against her, bringing their mouths together.

The Dane’s lips were soft, but her kiss was confident. She kissed gentle but sure, like someone who had kissed women before, and probably a lot of them. Ardith didn’t know if it was simply a relief to be treated gently after so many brutal days, but her eyes fell closed again. She surrendered to Ase’s warm, salty mouth, and gentle tongue.

It should not feel this good.

She should not feel warmth well up between her thighs, not for this one. But it did, and she could not bring herself to let go for some moments. She prayed silently to any of the gods who might be listening: _Why do you mean to undo me?_

Ase withdrew after what felt like several minutes, looking at her with lust-drunken eyes. A few of the Danes gave scattered applause, at which point Ardith flushed and begged to be returned to her place beside her friends.Ase escorted her back to them, gave them all cups of mead, and then tied Ardith’s wrists once again.

“ _God pige,_ ” she murmured, and gently stroked Ardith’s cheek. _Good girl._

“ _Jeg er en god pige_ ,” Ardith whispered back, hardly able to breathe. _I am a good girl._ The ropes scratched her wrists as Ase kissed her lips one last time before walking away. Ase would not let her remain untied just because she’d gotten a little kiss. It would take more.

_You bastard gods, what cruel longings have you thrust upon me?_


	27. No Other Cup of Tea But This One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myoge finds another way to show Aguri the spirit of Zen.

 

Myoge and Aguri sat at the end of a long table in the dining hall, wordlessly eating their plates laden with rice and vegetables.Aguri was still aware of how the mood in the room would change when she entered, and how the younger acolytes tended to stay clear of their table. Only some of the older ones, who had been there as long as Myoge or longer, would come to eat with them. Wataru was a frequent companion, and sometimes Suzue.

“They will never accept me,” Aguri muttered.

“That’s up to you.” Myoge caught a slice of carrot between her chopsticks. “And it doesn’t matter if they don’t.You’re not here to make friends. You’re here to find Zen.”

Aguri shrugged. “I’m used to having a cohort. Even when I was hated and feared, I had my retinue.”

Myoge bit into her food and left Aguri sitting there while she ate it.After a long pause, she said, “Well, I am your retinue.” She thought some more, tilting her head one way. “Or maybe you’re mine, hm?” Her eyes seemed to dance with a little mischief at this.

Aguri was not quite so easily goaded as she was when she first arrived here. She knew Myoge’s teasing for what it was. She smiled. “Do I have to carry your water?”

“No, but I’ll like you better if you do.”

Aguri saw Senkō enter at the other side of the great room. She wasn’t afraid of the girl, but didn’t like having been manipulated by her. “I think I could carry Senkō’s water for the rest of her days and she wouldn’t like me any better.”

Myoge snorted. “Senkō has growing up to do.”

“I have been thinking,” Aguri began, changing the subject, “about what you said the other day, that I already understand Zen. Is it only being able to exist in the present moment?”

“No.And yes.” 

Aguri frowned.

“What I mean is, it is about being fully in the present moment. But it is also about becoming part of it. Shedding your illusions of self and joining fully with that moment.”

Aguri paused, listening to the quiet murmur of the other monastics talking around the room. “So if I do it properly?”

Myoge smiled. “You are part of the world, and the world is part of you, and you exist in a state of pure unity with all things.”

“So, when I have peeled away off the illusions, and raked away the accidental shapes of leaves on the ground…?”

Myoge smiled at her across the table, looking beatific.“Emptiness. A beautiful, luminous emptiness.” The peace on her face as she said this struck Aguri deep, and she looked away; the openness, the fearless vulnerability of Myoge’s entire being and bearing, made Aguri feel as though she were seeing something she almost didn’t have a right to.

“Very strange,” she muttered.

Myoge nodded. “It’s a hard thing to explain, but easier to simply understand.” She considered for a moment. “I think that we must try some other means.”

 

***

 

Rain tapped on the screens, washing the last of spring’s chill from the mountain’s face. Aguri sat still, contemplating the blossoms of May’s wisteria.Purple, they spilled down, relaxed arms of full of blooms, over the vase’s lip. 

Too long had it been since someone sat before her, calmly preparing.Too long had it been since she had dwelt in the sounds of knees across tatami. Myoge sat beside the steaming brazier, her hands slim and delicate as she took her utensils one by one, and showed them to Aguri.Her eyes would find Aguri’s from time to time, observing her, determining whether she was fully present. She was.

Of all the arts of refinement popular among the samurai class, tea ceremony was always Aguri’s favorite.

“It probably will be a bit different from what you are familiar with at court,” Myoge had warned. “It will be simpler in many ways. But the important things will be the same.”

Myoge held up a cup, simple and clean in its lines, laquered black with an elegant lotus blossom painted on its good side. Aguri watched. She acknowledged its beauty. Myoge’s choices were excellent; the pot was white and bore ghostly drawings of the closed lotus flower on one side. Everything was balanced.

Spring had shaken off its chill but had not yet become summer. The warmth from the coals that heated the water just reached Aguri’s hands.In the quiet between them, serenity settled as they followed the steps as they had been practiced for centuries. Aguri watched and admired Myoge’s grace, appreciated her precision as she cleaned and displayed each utensil, fully engaging her mind and spirit in preparing for Aguri a perfect cup of tea.

Though she had attended many tea ceremonies held by friends of Noboru that were lavish, and some that went on for days, Aguri swore that no-one had prepared with such a intense focus or with so much care. Aguri resolved herself to focus in the same way, out of respect for the care that Myoge was taking. This was not for show, as so many she had attended had been. This was done out of love, and Aguri could see it.

 _Love all things,_ Myoge had been teaching her, _because you are part of the world and it is part of you. Love the moment. It has everything to teach you._

They shared a smile as Myoge lifted the hot water and poured it into the cup. The smell of the steam and the hot water first hitting the powdered matcha in the cup filled her with a sense of home, of being precisely where she belonged at this moment.Myoge’s calm was her calm.

The rituals were familiar. Aguri was able to follow them with ease, and her thoughts fell away as she watched Myoge’s slender hands pick up the bamboo whisk and whip the tea until it was perfect, with a light layer of froth on top. Had there ever been a more perfect cup of tea? Aguri could not recall any other except the one before her.

Indeed, Aguri could not recall any other moment except this one.She accepted with gratitude the cup presented to her, admiring the lotus flower on its face. She turned it in her hands, enjoying its heat against her palms, as she brought its face around so that Myoge could enjoy the view of the lotus flower. This too, was ritual. But it gave her a quiet joy. She bowed to Myoge and apologized for drinking first, as politeness demanded. She was surprised at the softness in her own voice.

The tea was perfect strength and thickness for the time of year that was still spring and not yet summer. It’s green scent hit the back of her throat before she took her sip. A lone kestrel cried once, then was still. The rain continued soft outside. The boughs would be wet and black when they emerged.

It was the best cup of tea she had ever had.

She was filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude.For the first time, it was as if she understood the gift that Myoge was giving her; by saving her life, by trying to show her Zen. Everything fell away except where she was, what she was doing, and who she was with. It was not the luminous emptiness that Myoge had described, but something better; the two of them, together in the present, thinking of nothing ahead, and nothing behind. Aguri did not think about her own past nor wonder about Myoge’s. They were simply together, bound in grace and caring for the creation of the perfect moment.

She gave Myoge leave to make her own cup of tea, and then took quiet pleasure in watching her do so.The steps repeated with the same grace. Her skill, her care, were mesmerizing. Aguri understood now. Noboru had thought he loved her, she supposed, but he had not given half this much focus and love to anything that he had ever done for her.She had not felt this cared for in a long time.

_Love the moment. It has everything to teach you._

In tea ceremony, it was the guest’s prerogative to say whether they wanted another cup of tea or had had enough. Out of politeness, most times one would simply say that they had had enough after one. But Aguri had not had enough of this moment, and asked for more. Myoge hardly seemed to mind. Aguri would question it later, but for now, it felt ordained to be here in this place with her, doing exactly this. So they had more tea.

They finished the water in the pot. Aguri could not in good conscience ask for more than that. But they exited the tea house with Aguri feeling somehow different. The rain was a mist now, warm on her face. She wanted to laugh at herself for not understanding Zen when she had so much love for the tea ceremony. But of course, she had never experienced one that felt like this.

 

*****

 

Myoge had not thought very much lately about the vision they had shared in the water.It had been many weeks by now and no more had occurred. And Aguri was work. For all her striving, Myoge still found she often had to carry her. She was sometimes exhausting.

But something had happened in the tea ceremony; Aguri’s gratitude seemed genuine, not ritualized. She had been surprised by how serene it was between them.When Aguri shyly asked for a third cup of tea, Myoge’s heart had stumbled. It felt like a victory. They were in a moment that Aguri did not want to see end too soon. Her spirit felt lighter when they had emerged. Myoge still struggled to believe how this venture was unfolding, but Aguri was a closed blossom that was opening, and soon the beauty of it would be more than she could bear. Myoge felt more aligned with her dharma name than she could ever remember feeling.

Aguri had begun to see the path. It was cause to rejoice. No spirit was too broken that it could not be healed, not even this one.

They lay in their shared room that night, and Aguri’s voice reached out in the dark. “Myoge? What brought you to the zendo?”

Myoge sighed. She had not wanted to answer these questions before, but she saw Aguri’s heart opening day by day. She supposed Aguri had a right to know that she, too, had come down a difficult path.

“Anger,” she began. “I had so much of it, and no place to put it.I came home one afternoon to find my father dead, slain with no honor. Assassin’s arrows in his chest and throat. They did not even allow him to die like a man, with his sword. So I sought vengeance.” 

“Did you get it?”

“Yes.” Myoge felt the stirrings of those ghosts in her chest and became restive. This was why she rarely visited the past. “But it was not enough. I learned the names of the two men who took his life, and killed them, but if I’d had my way, I’d have then killed both their families, and then their families’ families, and it would still not have been enough. No amount of spilled blood would have satisfied me.”

“So you were trained to fight before you came here.”

“Yes.My father taught me. I could use a naginata before I could walk.”

Aguri made a little sound of surprise. “So you took your vengeance, but your heart was not relieved.”

“No. My anger was eating me alive from the inside out. I was no better for having slain them. I barely ate, I tore at my hair, I suffered nightmares. I sat awake in the dark and considered methods of murder that would most dishonor those even tangentially related to my father’s fate. My heart was full of darkness.” She lay quiet for a moment. She would not talk about the wounds that she inflicted on her own skin as a means of avoiding releasing her rage on others. It would be too much now.

She went on. “My family is Buddhist, but my mother felt that perhaps I would benefit from a more intensive practice. I went to many convents before I found this place. Most are, as you like to say, laundry rooms for the monasteries, and they were not to my liking. But Konjen Roshi subscribes to many of Nichiren’s teachings regarding women, and I found it agreeable enough that I have stayed. I think my mother wishes I were somewhere more conventional but it is enough for her that I’ve found peace.”

“And your anger?”

“I am only human, after all,” Myoge answered. “I get angry sometimes, as anyone does. But it no longer rules me. It no longer bends me to vengeance. It no longer rots away my heart. I live to create love and live a life based on giving. I am greatly healed. Ten years of dharma practice will do that.”

“How old were you?”

“Sixteen.”

Aguri was quiet for a long time.Finally she spoke, and her voice sounded thick with emotion. “You were still young when he died. I would not have had you lose your father in that way.” The country’s wars were always between lords, territory getting yanked this way and that, and always, it was the people who suffered. Myoge had been glad when it seemed that Hideyoshi was taking power. She had heard that he spoke of carrying on Nobunaga’s ambition of unifying the country.Perhaps it would mean no more peasants and artisans and merchants getting bloodied in wars that were not their own.

Myoge turned onto her side and peered through the dark. She could just make out Aguri’s shape inside the bedroll. “None of us choose our own dharma. It may be that my own history of anger and grief makes me best suited to teach you properly. And it may be that your history of pride and cruelty makes you the best test of my own commitment to my dharma practice. In any case, we have been brought together and it…” She broke off. “…I remain convinced that it is for the good.”

A long quiet fell in which neither spoke, and Myoge began to wonder if Aguri had fallen asleep. But then she spoke: “Thank you, Myoge, for trusting me with this knowledge. I will not betray your trust.”

Myoge chuckled. “See that you don’t. Can’t have you make me look like an idiot after all this.”

But Aguri could hear the gentle humor in her voice and she laughed quietly in the darkness too. “Of course.”Myoge heard her shifting in her bedding. “Goodnight, _senpai_.”

Myoge’s heart warmed to hear her say this. She rarely addressed her as such, although their relationship was understood. “Goodnight, _kohai_.”


	28. Something Bigger Than the Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex understands Astra's strategy and comes up with one of her own.

 

Astra awoke on the hard floor of her cell, still sick. Days and nights didn’t mean much of anything down here. She still felt vaguely ill, but better. A blurry presence stood on the other side of the green-lit plexi.

“You lied to us, Astra.”

It was Alexandra Danvers again. Astra was glad to see her.She pushed up into a sitting position.

“I lost men because I trusted you.” She was angry, but it was well controlled. Beneath that, Astra was sure she saw some hurt.

Astra tried for a wry smile. “I _am_ the enemy, after all, Agent Danvers.”

“But you don’t have to be.” Her dark gaze penetrated the plexi and made Astra uneasy. “I think you hold on to a plan you don’t even want to go through with anymore because it hurts your pride to consider otherwise.”

“I have little left but my pride,” Astra responded. She was still weary from her ordeal.

Alex Danvers stopped and looked at her for a moment, seeming genuinely sympathetic. “That’s a choice you made. You think pride is all you have left because you gave up everything else.And it hasn’t done you any good.”She gestured around at Astra’s situation; small cell, hard floor, dim room full of kryptonite lights. “You gave me bad information.” And then added sardonically, “And after I brought you soup.”

Those last words stung more than they should.“I wish you had not.” Astra had almost felt badly, lying to her.

Alex shook her head slowly. “More pride.”

Astra noticed that her hands were tucked behind her back. “So, Agent. Are you armed? Preparing to visit retribution for your comrades?”

“Yes. I’m going to kill you.” Astra’s heart squeezed in like a fist for a moment.So Alex Danvers was like the others, after all. But then the human showed her hands; in them was a flat wooden box with a pattern of alternating dark and light wood squares. She one-handed a small folding table from the corner of the room and maneuvered it open in front of the cell. She laid the box on the table and opened it flat. She produced two sets of pieces from inside, a dark and light set.“At chess.”

“A table game?” Astra wondered.And her heart unclenched.

Alex nodded. “Yes. Ever played?”

“No. A strategy game, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Alex sighed. “Well, because General Lane has demonstrated that his approach is ineffective. So I’m trying another.”

Astra shivered. She could live a thousand years without ever hearing the name of General Laneagain. “And what is that?”

“Establish a rapport. Get you to trust me.

She was young but wise, Astra thought. Wiser than many around her. Perhaps it was her faith, or something in her training, but she seemed unique among the humans.“With chess?”

“Well,” Alex sighed as she began laying the pieces out on the board in what seemed like a very specific manner, “my math isn’t quite good enough for Al-Kamash, and I don’t think you’d enjoy learning how to tango.”

“Tango?”

“A kind of dance. I don’t think we’d make very good partners.”

“That is not necessarily so. You have exceptional grace. Nearly equal to my own.”

Alex smirked at this. She seemed satisfied with the layout of the board. “Think you can learn some new rules?”

Astra nodded. “If you do not mind being surpassed.”

They shared a moment in which they’d probably have smiled a little if they weren’t both so exhausted.

The human held up a piece, the tallest of them.“This is the queen. She can’t jump, but she can do just about everything else. She can go anywhere on the board. Forward, backward, sideways, diagonal, as many consecutive spaces as she wants. The queen is pretty much the most powerful piece on the board.”

“I like this game already.”

Alex smirked. “Well, even though she’s most powerful, it’s the king that’s most important. You keep him protected, or it’s game over.”

“What can he do?”

“He can move one space at a time in any direction.”

Astra squinted. “Not much of a king.”

Alex shrugged. “Well, that’s the game. Do you want to debate the gender politics of Earth or do you want to learn to play?”

 _I want to learn everything you want to tell me about the world through your eyes,_ Astra thought. Instead she said, “Either is fine. I am…” She hesitated, embarrassed. “…glad for any company that does not hate me or want me dead.”

Alex grabbed a folding chair and kicked it open. She sat down beside the table. She held up another small piece.“This is a pawn…” 

She could learn something about the human’s mind from this. It was tremendously valuable, she thought.Astra learned the rules, at least basically, and though Alex thrashed her in their first games, that was to be expected as she learned. _Always be prepared to take a beating,_ Astra thought, _and know how much you can stand before you even pick up your sword._ That had been a favorite line of the general who had trained her to take his place in the Kryptonian army. Nevertheless, she learned quickly and her showings became more respectable as they went on.

 

***

 

Company that hated her, it turned out, would come later.

Kara came to see her some while after Alex had departed.

“Are you feeling better?” her niece demanded.

Astra shook her head. “Only a little.”

Kara considered herfor a moment before speaking.“Agent Danvers said you seemed improved.” 

Astra peered at her.She needed something answered.“Who is she to you?”

Kara’s gaze was cold in the long pause that followed. “We fight beside each other.”

“A soldier’s bond, then?”

Kara nodded. “Something like that.” Her niece had grown.Astra thought she would never stop marveling at the noble, powerful beauty that she had become. “Astra, I want to know the truth.”

“What makes you think I have anything more to tell?”

Kara shook her head.“That’s not what I mean. I mean my mother. I want to know the whole truth.”

Astra sighed. “I have told you the truth.”

ButKara was undeterred. “What did she say to you, before she sent you away?”

Astra’s heart broke for the nth time since she had arrived on this cursed planet. “She said she believed me. She said she would fight for Krypton. She said she would fight for you.”Astra sighed heavily.“I would make the same choice every time, Kara. Your mother understood the choice I had made, too, but she nevertheless had to judge me for it.”

Kara’s grief was visible. “You knew she would.”

“Yes. But there was no question it needed to be done. No-one was listening to us.”

Recognition dawned in Kara’s eyes, then. “You sacrificed your freedom.”

“Yes. I never expected to get away with it. And if it would have saved Krypton, I would do it a hundred thousand times over again, without hesitation.”

Kara seemed overwhelmed by this realization. The truth, Astra mused, is often more complex than it appears. Kara was learning this.

“My sister was more flawed than you knew, little one. But still, in the end, she believed me. Do you now understand why I cannot allow the same thing to happen to this world that happened to ours? I have already sacrificed everything once.”

Only now, it seemed, was Kara able to begin to understand.

Kara’s shoulders slumped, and she shook her head.“I won’t repeat her mistakes. I won’t.”

“That is your choice, and yours alone.”

Astra watched her leave, the golden crest of the noble House of El wavering on the back of her fluttering cape as she walked out.

 

*****

 

Agent Danvers returned later. Astra wasn’t sure what later meant. She just knew it was later.

She sat down in front of the small table with the chessboard open.“So where’s Hank?”

“I am well, Agent Danvers, thank you.And you?”

Alex smirked. “Are we going to pretend we like each other now?”

“Playing table games was your idea.”

Alex gave a shrug of concession. “True.”She began laying the chess pieces on the board. “Black or white this time?”

“Black.”

“You don’t choose the advantage?”

“Being forced to choose the opening move is not necessarily an advantage.” Astra leaned forward, considering her. “Your greatest strength and your greatest weakness is your recklessness.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Alex placed a pawn two spaces forward. “1.g3.”

Astra nodded.“You are setting up a Fianchetto opening,” she said, after a moment of searching for the name of the gambit.

“I may be.”

“Queen’s pawn to d4, then.”

“Planning a Queen’s Gambit?”

“I may be.”

They smiled at one another through narrowed eyes.

“Where’s Hank?” Alex asked again, liberating her bishop from the back row of pieces.

“2c4, please,” Astra responded. She watched Alex move her piece. “Who are you to my niece?”

Alex moved another pawn out to protect her bishop.“Why does it matter?”

“Queen’s knight to d2, please.”Alex moved the piece as she requested. “Can I not be curious?”

Alex shook her head.“You’ve established control of the center of the board, but your sides are weak.I would castle soon.” She looked up. “You can wonder if you like, but it’s not really relevant.”

They played back and forth for some time after that, not speaking much apart from Astra calling moves out to Alex through the plexi, and the quiet tap of her setting a piece on a wooden square.

“You’ve learned fast,” Alex remarked. “You sure you haven’t played before? I wouldn’t put it past you to be hustling me.”

Astra shrugged.“What would I have to gain? We are not playing for my freedom.”

Alex paused, looking up at her.“What if we were? Would you play differently?”

Astra smiled, and requested that Alex move her bishop two spaces forward.

Alex frowned. “Are you sure?”

Astra nodded. She watched Alex take the piece with no small measure of suspicion.

On and on they went, Astra walking one piece after another into positions so that Alex could take them. Eventually her king remained walled into a corner by several lesser pieces and her queen sat in the middle of the board. Alex shook her head. “I don’t understand what you’re doing.”

“Sacrificing the queen.”

But Alex persisted. “But for what? You’re already a better player than this. It’ll get you nothing!You sacrifice your queen and I have you in checkmate in two, maybe three moves.” 

Astra nodded.“But sometimes, Agent Danvers, you sacrifice the queen for something bigger than the game.”

 

 

******

 

Alex marched into the armory, where Kara was staring around at the various kryptonite weapons in their casings.Alex knew that it was only a matter of time before they were going to see some more action. She also knew that everything about what was happening right now was fundamentally wrong.“Kara.”

Kara didn’t look at her, but continued staring at the large blade in the case along the far wall.“This one reminds me a lot of the ceremonial blades my parents had.Astra wore one like it when she was decorated for the Daxamite wars.”

Alex had always felt that the oldness of Krypton’s culture was palpable in many of its traditions, at least so far as she had observed.She felt this especially in many of her dealings with Astra.“It also reminds me a little of some of the blades I trained with.”An awkward pause followed.

“Did you know,” Kara asked after a moment, “that she knew that what she did was going to send her to Fort Rozz? Even without the… complications?”

Alex frowned.

Kara nodded. “That’s what she said.That she knew she was going to be sent to prison for what she did, but that she would do it again if it meant saving Krypton. What she did was… it’s still wrong, and I don’t know if I can forgive it, but… It was a conscious sacrifice on her part.” Kara turned now, and fixed Alex with an expectant look.“Is she talking to you?”

Alex shivered.She nodded. Something fell into place when Kara said that.Of course, she thought, it was a sacrifice.It was a concept Astra seemed deeply comfortable with.

“Did she tell you where Hank is?”

“No. But she will.” Alex took a breath.“Kara, we _are_ getting Hank back.”

“How?”

“We’re going to do the goddamn prisoner exchange.”

“Return Astra to Non?But Lane will never let you!”

Alex nodded. “But I’m the acting director of this facility. And if he wants to try and stop me, he’s going to have to go through both of us.” She paused.“Right?”

Kara nodded slowly, considering her. The DEO’s role in relation to the rest of the U.S. Military was always a particularly sketchy thing. But she was concerned. “Yesterday, you thought it was a bad move.”

Alex sighed.“I still think it is, tactically. But sometimes, you sacrifice your queen for something bigger than the game.”

 

 

 


	29. Barrels and Rope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ase visits a fortune teller. Ardith hatches a plan to escape.

 

Jorunn was not a _völva_ in any sense that the Danes might have considered her to be, but she was the closest that Ase was going to find at Helder.After Ase had escorted Ardith back to the Nagelfar and paid Jelke’s lads for the baskets, she saw that half her crew was still milling about the stalls, so she left Hilde in command and decided to go pay the fortune teller a visit.

Jorunn was a matronly woman, nearly old enough to be Ase’s mother, round and fat, with great, pendulous breasts and her hair tied up under a cloth. She wore a cross around her neck and dispensed “blessings,” mostly to avoid trouble with the local authorities, but everyone knew she was not really a proper Christian any more than she was a “proper” anything else.

One could never predict how she would try to seek her visions, and as far as Ase could tell, she practiced something that was a haphazard stringing together of Danish folk magic, the reading of tea leaves as practiced, she claimed, by Saxon pagans in the old days, and a bit of Christian superstition mixed in.

“Doesn’t their nailed god frown on that sort of mixing?” Ase had once asked.

Jorunn had chuckled. “Well, I expect he’ll strike me down if he’s that upset.”

Ase came to her today with a silver coin in hand.

Jorunn looked up at her.“You had a good raid, then,” she remarked.

Ase nodded. “Did the runes tell you that?”

“No. Your ship sits low in the water.Full hold, I think.”

“Yes.”

Jorunn scratched under one of her giant breasts. “Well, you don’t need me to tell you how your raids are going to go, so what is it? The Saxon girl I saw you with just now?”

Ase’s brow furrowed. “Yes.”

Jorunn considered for a minute. The space in the conversation was filled by the babble in the background of folk on the docks and the creaking of wood, the splashing of water, the haggling of sailors and merchants. The pause grew so long that Ase began to wonder if Jorunn had gotten frozen that way, sitting on her tiny stool, gazing up at the gray sky behind Ase’s shoulder.

Finally, she spoke.“Your husband’s betrayal still stings you.”

Ase hesitated.

“Even though you were rewarded for it,” Jorunn added.

Ase shuddered, as though feeling the presence of Njord’s mind. “I lost a husband and a hand. Can’t say the reward of being jarl is worth what I lost.” Shook her head to clear it, and became annoyed that she had allowed Jorunn to nudge her into that mind so easily. “But tell me. The girl.”

“The girl… you and she are destined. Your threads are woven together such that none alive, not man nor woman, could break them.”

Ase’s heart leapt.“I knew it.”

“But,” she went on, “she brings sadness. Your heart will shatter into a thousand pieces, and the pieces will be scattered through all the nine realms, and your _hamingja_ will leave your family line and find a home somewhere far, far away from you and yours.”

Ase’s chest felt heavy.She had not been able to bear children to Njord, but her sister had a child, and Ase had always assumed that whatever luck she had could be passed on to her, and then the girl would be doubly blessed.Or else she might have willed her luck on to the Danish girl that Ardith had called sister. 

“But why?” she asked after a moment. “Why would the norns be so cruel to bind me to someone who will only bring me sadness?”

Jorunn shrugged. “I only see what I see. I never get a why. You want to know why the Norns do what they do, ask your second’s woman.”

Ase cursed. “Does everyone between Langadalr and Suth-Sæxe know that Hilde used to practice seidr?” she demanded of nobody in particular.

“Your Harald is shit at keeping secrets,” Jorunn chuckled. She became quite serious, then. “But listen, Ase. I see you slaying her, Ase.Better you kill the girl now, before you pour all of your heart into loving her and then the killing hurts that much more.”

She thought of the kiss, and how suddenly vulnerable Ardith had looked when it was done. Her cheek had flushed. Her eyes had been wide with surprise and pupils large with lust. Her lips had felt like home. The thought of slaying her was too much to bear. “But I dreamt of her _fylgja_ and mine, a wolf and a great cat, lying down together.”

Jorunn sighed heavily. “Yes, your animal spirits love one another. But this life was not made for the two of you to be bound to one another in that way.”

This was not what Ase wanted to hear. “Does she love me?”

Jorunn squinted thoughtfully. “It is… hard to say. She is very confused.”

“But will she ever?”

Jorunn shook her head, muttering for several minutes.She took up a small urn, pulled a pouch from the cord around her waist, and dipped her fingers into it.She pulled out a pinch of grey dust, dropped it into the urn and spat into it, then shook it this way and that.

“What’s that dust?”

Jorunn waved a hand dismissively. “The ground-up bones of a Christian saint.”

“You would see my future with the bones of a Christian?” Ase was mildly offended.

“If it works,” Jorunn replied, “I use it.”

“Then what do the bones of Saint Whoever It Is tell you?”

“It is hard to see.”Her brow furrowed. “Harder than usual. Her future is hidden from me. All I can tell you is that, do what you will, it will end in sadness.”

“What good are you to me!” Ase snapped.

Jorunn shrugged.“I tell you what I see, not what you want to hear.You want someone to blow smoke up your ass, go visit a church.”

Ase dropped her the coin in Jorunn’s hand and stalked away.She wondered what it would be like to visit a church without sacking it.

 

*****

 

Ardith sat with her head back against the capstan with eyes closed, listening to the rushing of her own blood.

Wyne spoke first. “She has thunderstruck you,” he said. His voice was quiet and sad.

Ardith sighed, and opened her eyes to look at him. He looked weary. “No,” she lied. “It was strange to kiss a woman that way, that’s all.”

Wyne sighed.He leaned forward to look at Jetta.Confirming that their friend was asleep, he spoke. “Ardith. It was more than just strange. There’s a reason why the one time you and I ever tried, nothing happened, and it isn’t only because of me.”

When they were young, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, the two of them had tried to have a go of it, more out of curiosity than anything else. They stripped out of their smallclothes on a bright, chilly autumn day and laid down together in the straw in the storehouse, but neither of them had felt even the slightest stirrings of anything. With awkward laughter, they got dressed again, and promised one another to never do that again.

She huffed. “So what if it was more than that? She still killed my father and destroyed my home, and I mean to kill her when we escape here.I’ll have my vengeance, Wyne, for myself and whatever may remain of Haedwalle.”

Wyne grimaced. “Only if you can do it in a way that won’t hurt our chances of escape.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and noticed that the volume of the conversation on board was becoming louder.More Danes were coming back from the market.They would be striking out to sea, soon.

“What is your plan for escape, anyway?”

She dropped her voice, even though it was unnecessary.None of the Danes understood her.“We’ve an abundance of things on this ship–”

“Beards?” Wyne quipped. “Dried meat?”

“Barrels, you damned mymmerkin, and rope!” she exclaimed irritably.

“And what is it we’re meant to do with that?”

As she explained her plan, she became excited.“Well, the barrels will float, right?”

“Only if they’re empty.These have all got mead in them.”

“Right.” She tapped her finger against her knee. “How are we going to get them emptied?”

“Better question is _why_ are we going to get them emptied?”

She shook her head in frustration.“Come on, you’re the inventor here, keep up! We get a bunch of empty barrels, lash them together, get away on that.”

Wyne was skeptical, but he always was… until she’d explained her crazy idea, and by then he was always sucked in to solving that “one little problem” with her plan that would have kept it from working and once he’d done that, well, then they simply had to execute it and see it work.

“Right, but how far do you reckon we could get on a bunch of barrels?And what about making it move? I’m not fond of the idea of dying adrift in the middle of the sea.”

“Well, they have got oars,” Ardith pointed out.

“But they’re far too big! We’d never be able to steal them, let alone manage them riding on a bunch of barrels.”

“Well, there must be something else that we could use for oars, then. I’ll have to get Ase to take me below deck to show me all her plunder. She’s a Dane, she wants to show off and impress me, so of course she’ll show me. There might be other things we could use.” She thought for a moment.“You suppose we could hoist a little sail?”

Wyne thought. “It’s possible. Just how many barrels were you thinking?”

“There are at least a dozen on the deck. So what if we took nine?”

“Nine! They would notice!”

Ardith smiled. “Well, that’s where the part about emptying the barrels comes in.”She watched two of the men adjusting the yard, then watched how they knotted the rope to secure it, so that it slipped upwards until it sat snug between the wooden base of the yard.“I think we’ll also need to learn to tie a knot like they do. I imagine that we get the ropes round the barrels while they’re on deck, but don’t pull them together till it’s all in the water.”

Wyne wasn’t enjoying any part of this prospect, but since he had no better plan, he considered her.“I don’t think I’d want to do it unless we could see land.Now would have been a good time, as we were leaving the Frisian port, but I don’t imagine we’ll be able to do any of this quickly enough.”

“It may be that we’ll sail along the coast. Let’s hope for a bit of luck.”

“And what about emptying the barrels?”

“Obviously,” Ardith said, warming to the idea of escape, “I will need to convince Ase that everyone on board needs to celebrate our newfound love.”

Jetta awoke with a snort at this. “What? Have you got a plan, then?”

“Aye, Jetta.”

“Does it involve you seducing Ase?”

“It does, Jetta.”

He frowned. “I wish it didn’t.”

Ardith sighed. “You needn’t worry. Technically, I suppose I’ll still be chaste no matter what happens.” She laughed a little, but Jetta was not so amused.

“I don’t like you giving yourself to her for our sake, and even less so for revenge’s sake.”

“You don’t like me giving myself to her at all,” Ardith snapped, “and I understand, but unless you’ve got a better plan, I don’t see what choice I have.”

Jetta groaned.“Wyne, please tell me you’ve been trying to talk her out of this.”

Wyne chuckled. “You think I can talk her out of something once she’s set her mind? You’d better get used to the idea that we’re on this ride, friend.”

Jetta stretched his legs out in front of him and then drew them in. It was difficult, sitting all day and not getting to move about much. “So what does it involve besides seducing the jarl?”

“Barrels, rope, and excessive drunkenness,” Wyne quipped.

People were sitting down at the oars now.It was likely only a matter of minutes before they set out. Ardith wished she had thought of this sooner and then they could have made their escape here. But she was feeling determined, now.There were details to be worked out of course, but this would work. It had to.

Ase was back on board, talking with her crew. After some moments, they began to row themselves out and away from the docks. Ase strode over to her, knelt down in front of her, and stroked her cheek. She spoke for several moments in Danish, and Ardith understood almost none of it. She wore that soft smile, though, and took Ardith’s bound hands in her hand, and kissed them.

Ardith sighed.“Will you let me free, my love?” she asked, holding up her bound hands.

“ _Maske snårt,_ ” Ase replied, shaking her head. But then she leaned in for another kiss.

This time, Ardith was ready. She closed her eyes and let herself fall open for it, let it warm her blood. She let herself kiss back, let herself taste the salt and ale on Ase’s tongue, and instead of fighting the warm ache that she felt in her belly, she gave herself to it. She pressed in. She needed to convince Ase that this was what she wanted.

And Ase was pleased when they stopped. She took in Ardith’s face, and spoke softly and gently, for some moments.

“I fear you take too much joy in your task,” Wyne muttered.

Ase spent a long moment staring at Ardith’s face. Then she untied Ardith’s rope, stood up, and offered her a hand. Ardith took it, and stood up. Without looking back at Wyne, she said, “On the contrary, I think I am taking exactly enough.” She slipped her arms around Ase’s waist, and kissed her again, relishing the feel of her tongue and her smooth lips and powerful arms. She pulled back, looked at her, and told her quietly, “You may have inspired lust in my body, but you will never have my heart. And you will answer for what you did to my home.”

Ase shrugged. She couldn’t understand the words, but they didn’t matter anyway. All that mattered to her was that Ardith was kissing her.

“Now, my love, there is something I want,” Ardith went on. “Can we have some _mjød_?”

Jetta heaved a sigh. “Off we go. Woden protect us.”


	30. A Function of Compassion

Aguri worked in the garden, plucking dead leaves from a low hedge under Myoge and Wataru’s watchful eyes. Myoge observed the contentment on her face as she took to her task.

“She’s doing well?” he inquired.

Myoge nodded. “She’s a trial at times, but she’s learning. As am I.”

Wataru raised an eyebrow.

“I would be a poor teacher if I learned nothing from my student.” Myoge thought again of the sweet, plucky younger girl who had been her _kohai_ at school in Kamakura; back then, it hadn’t been Zen, but rather the ladylike arts in which Myoge was guiding her companion. She had been quite fond of the girl and wanted to help her as much as was reasonable.Myoge had sincerely enjoyed watching her grow and master skills that she struggled with. And the process had also taught Myoge patience and good humor.

He gave a shrug of concession. “So what have you learned from her, then?”

“I’ve learned what true alignment with my dharma name feels like.”

He looked impressed. “No small thing.” 

“No, no small thing.”She gazed at Aguri, delighting in her calm. “She would not have been able to content herself with quietly plucking dead leaves from branches for so long before. She’s changing, whether or not she knows it. And in so doing, she helps me to fulfill the aspiration which was laid before me when I came here.”

He gazed at her a moment, as if debating something, and then turned back to watching her.“Yorihime Noboru is a cruel, petty man. She carried out his will for a long time. Do you truly believe she can change?”

Her chest tightened.“If she can’t, I will be the fool for having believed so. But just as Konjen Roshi peeled away my rage layer by layer, I believe we are peeling away her pride in the same way.” A sudden wash of emotions that she had not felt in some time flooded up into her throat.

“Then whatever else happens will have been worth it.” Wataru had no further comment. They stood a moment longer in quiet, listening to the murmuring of the grounds and the water and the breezes, and then they broke from one another to perform their respective duties.

 

***

 

Their days were long, full of reading and meditating,gardening and cooking and training. Aguri was still limited to training with her left hand, though Myoge felt it would not be much longer till she could train with her right again. But today was for a trek into the mountain’s wild growth. They walked to a stream, one that was likely further up than the one where Aguri had lain when Myoge found her.

In the cloth sacks over their backs, they each carried rolled-up bamboo mats, suzuri ink stones, bottles of ink, brushes, and sheets of rice paper.Like many things Aguri had thought she knew when she came here, she expected to be proven underinformed. She had seen the roshi’s flawless calligraphy and knew that although she had learned to write when she was young, that hers would not be as good as his.

“Why are we doing this out here and not at a table as the roshi does?” she wondered.

“Sometimes we do that too,” Myoge responded lightly, her feet crunching over twigs as they walked. “Today is a beautiful day. I prefer to be outside.”

They sat side by side in the slanting shafts of light, listening to the trickle of the stream, and Aguri observed Myoge beginning to draw the character for Zen. Aguri copied it as best she could, but her touch was not half as graceful as Myoge’s. She sighed in irritation and tossed her first page aside.

“Put aside your expectations for yourself,” Myoge said without looking up. “Try again.”

She tried again, attempting to duplicate everything about Myoge’s posture, the tilt of her wrist, the angle of her head as she gazed at the rice paper on the stone in front of her. Still, she lacked Myoge’s skill. Continued attempts yielded results that were no better.

With a frustrated snarl, Aguri looked and found no more paper in her sack. “I was not cut out for this,” she groused.

Myoge looked at her sternly. “You did not pick up a shinai and instantly become a master with the sword. This is no different.”

“But I already know how to do this!”

Myoge shookher head.“You only think you know.”

Aguri couldn’t explain why she was so upset that her work was not as good as Myoge’s, but her eyes welled up with frustration.

Myoge came and kneltbeside her. “You’re still thinking of yourself as distinct from the brush and the ink and the paper.”

“Am I not?”

“No. Let me show you.” Myoge fetched her brush and ink stone, which still contained some ink. She sat cross-legged in the leaves beside Aguri, and took her hand. “Close your eyes.”

Aguri complied, but was confused.

She remained still, with her hand in Myoge’s, and a moment later she gasped in surprise as she felt the cool tip of the brush against her skin. Across the back of her hand, she felt the lick of six strokes, slow and careful, one after the other. “What are you writing?”

Myoge chuckled. “You can’t tell?”

She felt a few more, a long one and then two short. The touch of the brush was gentle, yet unmistakably present.“The character for a wave?” she guessed.

“Yes.”

Aguri opened her eyes and looked at the beautifully written character on the back of her hand.“Why that?”

“To remind you that you’re giving yourself over to something far greater than yourself.” Myoge’s eyes lingered on the back of Aguri’s hand, which she still held.

“But why on my skin?”

Myoge’s fingertips brushed the soft part of Aguri’s wrist as she pulled her hand away. “I want you to know what the paper feels like. When you take the brush to the paper, imagine that your goal is to make the paper feel what I have made you feel.”

Aguri shivered. “Will you show me again?”

Myoge’s eyes finally looked up and found hers. “What shall I write?”

Aguri smiled. “Your name?”

Myoge laughed. “No. You put your name on things that you own. I don’t own you.”

“As you say,” Aguri agreed. “Alright then, something from the sutras that you would like me to remember.”

Myoge wrinkled her nose. “The most appropriate passage is too long to write on your hand.”

Aguri glanced around. There was no-one present. “Then write it on my back.”

Myoge was skeptical. “It will take me some time.”

Aguri shrugged. “I need practice being a piece of paper.”

Myoge considered for a moment, then nodded in reply. She repositioned herself behind Aguri.Aguri rearranged herself, and slipped her robe up over her head, and then sat cross legged in the grass again, holding the robe to the front of herselfto preserve some modesty on the off chance someone might encounter them.

The air stirred warm against her skin. She took a breath and closed her eyes, her back tingling with anticipation of the tip of Myoge’s brush. As before, the first touch of it was cool and made her gasp.She shivered.

“Hold still,” Myoge scolded gently.

“I’m sorry. It feels strange.” But she settled into the sensation, feeling Myoge’s warm hand spread across her scarred shoulder blade while the cool tip of her brush drew soft, distinct lines against her skin.She endeavored to tell what characters Myoge was drawing, but she could hardly focus beyond the peculiar feeling of being painted on with ink by a masterful hand. She breathed until she could imagine herself lying flat, being carefully stained with inky words.

She couldn’t say how long it went on, but Myoge worked from one shoulder blade to the other, with a touch that was both firm and gentle.

“What does it say so far?” she asked after some long quiet.

“The appearance of the sun is a function of compassion.”

“Compassion,” Aguri repeated.

“Yes,” Myoge answered, continuing with great calm. “It’s at the heart of what’s required forboth of us. For me to practice it, and for you to learn it.”

Aguri dwelt for a moment in a particularly long, careful stroke and tried to remember the part of the sutra that that line came from. It came to her: “The illumination of the moon is also compassion, as is the beautiful respiration of green plants and trees.”

“Yes,” Myoge said, her voice barely more than a whisper. She sounded pleased. “You’ve studied well. But stop talking and be the paper.”

Aguri thought what a pleasant thing it was to be a piece of paper under Myoge’s brush. She sat, taking note of the changes in pressure and where Myoge would linger before making another stroke, and how she would pause before applying the brush to any of the scars that marked her back, seeming to take more care before touching there. She felt sure she would never forget a single word of the sutras if each one were written on her in this way.

She wondered if she would truly be able to handle her brush better for having experienced this. She wondered if it even mattered.

She felt a closeness to Myoge just now. Perhaps because it was something new. Never having been touched in precisely this way, she found she had to breathe to keep little quakes from skittering through her muscles from time to time. Warmth filled her belly and she sat still, soaking up the feeling of being drawn upon. 

Myoge finally stopped after what felt like a long time, and Aguri listened to her draw a long, satisfied breath and then quietly set her utensils aside. “You were a very good piece of paper,” she said finally.

Aguri opened her eyes.Still holding her robe against herself, she twisted around to look at Myoge. She was about to return the compliment, but something in Myoge’s look said it was unnecessary; she knew that it had created a moment, and she had dwelt in it too.She still did.

“I believe I have learned something,” Aguri managed after a minute of quiet.“It’s a shame I haveno more paper.”

Myoge smiled faintly. “You have me.”

Aguri slipped her robe back over her head. Myoge came beside her and offered her hand.

Aguri shook her head.“It’s too uneven. I’m not as good as you.” She took Myoge’s sleeve and pushed it up, baring her left bicep. “Here would be easier,” she said, tracing her fingers over the skin.

Myoge rolled the sleeve up over her shoulder to keep it in place. “What will you write?”

“Your name,”Aguri answered, with some mischief.

“I’m starting to think that’s the only thing you know how to write.”

Aguri dipped the brush into the ink.Myoge closed her eyes. She began.

 

***

 

Aguri and Myoge were sparring in the training yard. The other groups were not supposed to be watching, but Aguri was aware of them stealing glances in between their exercises. Their  _shinai_ smacked loudly against each other as they circled, their _zori_ sandals kicking up little dust clouds in the dry dirt.And at the end of a long volley, the point of Myoge’s long _shinai_ was once again at Aguri’s throat. “You’re dead,” Myoge said with a little smile.

Aguri tried not to get frustrated.

“You’re still fighting left-handed,” Myoge reassured her. “I’m sure it will be different when you’re back to using your right.”

Aguri shook her head. “But a good warrior can use both.”

They bowed to each other. Then she noticed Myoge looking past her shoulder.

“Hello, Konjen Roshi.”

Aguri turned around. She saw him approaching from behind her, looking between them with a look that said he was inspecting, evaluating. He inclined his head to both of them. “Aguri,” he remarked, “I see you still struggle.”

Aguri flushed. “Yes, roshi. I’m afraid that my left is not as good as my right.”

He shook his head. “That’s not the problem. The problem with your swordcraft is the same as the problem with your calligraphy.”

Aguri shouldn’t have been surprised to know that he was evaluating her work in that area as well. It simply hadn’t occurred to her. “And what is that?”

“You rely too heavily on your skill.”

She didn’t understand. She squinted at him. “What… should I be relying on?”

“You should be relying on The Way,” he explained. “Everything that we do here is a form of practice of The Way. It’s not only when we sit _zazen_ that we practice it. It’s also in the rituals of our eating, bathing, cooking, laundry, everything. And yes, in your calligraphy. Calligraphy and swordcraft have much in common. They are both forms of expression of the dharma. When you practice dharma, you’re attuned with all things. The deeper and more complete that connection, the better your sword and brush alike are able to produce results that express that connection.”

Aguri frowned.

Seeing her confusion, the roshi’s lips curled faintly with amusement. He glanced around.“Jōji!” he called.

A young monk who was taking sword training in a small group responded to his call. “Yes, roshi!”

“Fetch your bow and some arrows and come here, please!”

“Yes, roshi!”

Aguri recognized the youth. She had seen him practicing his archery before.For one so young, he was truly excellent. He had felled a swallow on the wing from fifty yards. “Is archery also an expression of The Way?” she wondered.

The roshi smiled. “Anything can be an expression of The Way. Jōji has found that to be a particularly vibrant one for him. But you’ll understand in a moment why I’ve called him to us.”

The youth came jogging over a few moments later, bow slung over his shoulder and a bunch of arrows clutched in his fist. He gave them an expectant look.

The roshi pointed to a spot some thirty yards away, next to a tree at the edge of the yard. “Please go stand over there and fire one of your arrows at me.”

Jōji looked at the roshi as if he was sure he had not heard correctly. “Roshi?”

The roshi continued to point. “Go there. Nock your arrow. Then release it.”

“At …you?”

“At me.”

The young man seemed uneasy with this command, but did as he was told and jogged over to the tree. Aguri stepped back a few feet to observe.

The roshi was not even facing the young man. He was simply gazing at the tops of the pines that nestled against the outer wall at the back of the _zendo’s_ property, as if he couldn’t care less what was about to happen. He drew the _katana_ at his waist and held it calmly before himself, as though inspecting its edge.

“Um … now?”

“Yes, now.”

Aguri watched Jōji nock his arrow, draw it back, and then heard, even at this distance, the thrum of the bowstring and the whistle of the arrow as it whipped toward its target. The roshi barely moved, except that she saw the steel of his blade flash in the light. When he had returned to his resting state, the arrow lay in splinters on the ground beside him.

“Again, Jōji,” he called. “Two at once, if you please.”

Aguri watched in wonderment as again, the bow sang, the arrows whistled, and somehow the roshi’s sword intercepted them and shattered them in the air.

“Do you have any more arrows, Jōji?”

“I have three,” the youth called back.

“Three at once, then, if you please.”

Aguri watched the entire moment, her mind trying to slow it down to its constituent parts. But she couldn’t. The roshi’s senses were simply tuned to the movement of Jōji’s arm as it drew back, the intention of his fingers to release, the whistling of the arrows in the air as they approached. His blade’s movement was perfectly timed to meet the arrows and splinter them. There was no point in attempting this herself. Aguri knew she would end up skewered if she did.

“Thank you, Jōji. You may return to your other training now.”

The youth bowed and jogged back to where he had come from.

The roshi smiled at her. “Do you understand? The Way opens you to all things. The more you can become part of what’s around you, the more your actions will be an expression of that. So your sword, your brush, it makes no difference. It is skill, to a point. But there is something beyond skill, Aguri. And that is what I wish to see you acquire.”

 

*******

 

In the weeks that followed, Aguri’s calligraphy did become better. She found she could envision the characters and break the walls down between herself and the moment, and become what she wanted to create. She was not as good as the others who had been there longer, but she saw that she had improved. And the more she was able to be one with her actions, the better she became.

She often sought practice with Myoge and asked to be the paper.And soon she became good enough that when Myoge was the paper, Aguri could draw even on the back of her hand. Sometimes she would stray from her task and instead of writing characters, she would draw pictures; a wave curling around her arm, cherry blossoms on her back. “That doesn’t feel like sutras,” Myoge would remark with mock sternness.

Her favorite thing to draw was Myoge’s name. She loved the simplicity of its lines. The ink markings on their hands would sometimes attract curious looks from the others at mealtimes or in _seshin_ , but it only amused them. They had found a shared language that transcended words.

Aguri felt she was beginning to understand Zen, but she struggled with one small point; she could scarcely imagine a perfect moment if Myoge was not in it with her.

 


	31. An Ever-Fixèd Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex leads a team on a rescue mission. It goes badly.

_Alex remembered the day she lost her father. She remembered her mother unraveling in the living room, telling her he was gone. It was late, Alex should have been asleep. But she heard the front door opening and closing, heard the boots, and recognized the stiffness in her mother’s voice. It was the sound of Eliza Danvers when she was doing her best Jackie O.; keeping stoic, but breaking on the inside. It was the day she learned that there was no trusting in anything. If Jeremiah Danvers wasn’t coming home, what the hell else in the world could she ever rely on?_

_Her world shrank that day. Her circle of trust became herself and only herself, and even her mother and Kara were not to be loved too fiercely or too deeply, because what if something took them from her? Only Kara, who was simultaneously her burden and her salvation, managed to worm her way in, in a way that only a sister could have done. And that was what Kara remained, to this day. Both her burden and her salvation._

 

They walked together, she and Kara, through the dark of the warehouse, vast and punctuated with the pale circles of yellow dropped by sodium lamps overhead. This was where Astra had sent them. Alex had her doubts about the quality of the information, but something in her had wanted to believe. Maybe it was for Kara’s sake, or maybe it was just that she didn’t want everything that had happened to be for nothing. She wanted to get Hank back. She wanted to return to a state of normalcy.

They had a cohort of a dozen heavily armed and armored agents behind them. Alex trusted them all and knew that they watched for her signals.Mixed in with them was a small knot of Lane’s army men, and she didn’t know them, but they were instructed to follow her and they had displayed no recalcitrance thus far.

 _All that we are,_ she thought as they moved softly forward, _arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world._

The metal hulks of corrugated storage containers sat hunkered throughout the enormous empty space. A platoon of Fort Rozz fighters could be hunched behind every one of them. But it was quiet, except for her own breathing and the leathery creaking of Kara’s boots as they moved through the dim.If there was a platoon of anything in here, they were being awfully well behaved.

 

_Alex had watched the video of General Lane’s unfortunate interview with Astra. She hadn’t been able to abide most of it, but she’d insisted on seeing it herself rather than take Lane’s word for what had or hadn’t been said._

_Astra, sick and weak, rasped out a set of coordinates. “I do not know your inefficient means of geolocation,” she had said.Street addresses, was what she meant, Alex realized. If you don’t know the streets of a city, how do you ever find anything? The numbers are sequential but their beginnings and endings are arbitrary, the artery names even more so._

_And of course Astra would find time, even in her circumstances, to take a poke at the human way of doing things. Didn’t matter, Alex understood the coordinates, and plotted them. They led to a warehouse by Pier 25._

_“That’s a big place,” Lane remarked. “Must be a hundred containers in there, minimum. How do we find our man?”_

_“There are many containers,” she answered weakly, “but only one red one.”_

 

Kara pointed.Alex followed her indication and saw the huge rectangular container. They nodded to each other once. Alex raised her arm, and signaled to her group that they were to follow. Astra had given them what they needed after all. They would find and bring home Hank.

The team was soundless.They walked soft and with caution, fanned out behind Alex, watching for every threat.Side by side, she and Kara walked up the ramp that led up to the lip of the red container.They looked at each other, and in silent agreement, Kara took the handle and pulled it open.It heaved a metallic groan.

Through the cracked-open door, a finger of dim blue light popped out in the gloom. Alex could hear sounds from within, electronic sounds, metallic whirring sounds. She and Kara nodded to each other once, and Kara pulled the door the rest of the way open.

Inside, strapped to a chair, with metal bands affixed around his limbs and his head, sat Hank. He was upright, stiff, eyes closed.“Hank!” Alex exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. He didn’t seem to respond.

 

_Alex was drunk when she met Hank Henshaw for the first time._

_She wore her hair long then, and she sat in a holding cell by the Nat City Piers, wearing a sparkly cocktail dress with several runs in her stockings, smeared eyeliner, and a couple of cuts on her knuckles.“Public drunkenness,” he’d said with that tone of disappointment that would become familiar to her.“Disorderly conduct. You know, your swing is sloppy as hell but with a little training you could have a mean right cross.”_

_Hank taught her that, and more. He trusted her intellect and her ability to learn. He gave her a chance when she was a loose cannon and struggling with finding a purpose. And Alex’s circle got a little wider._

 

The light looked strange. It was sputtering a little. Her sidearm still raised, she frowned and inched a little closer to the chair, which was at the far end of the container. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck.This was too easy.It felt wrong.

Her eyes narrowed. She glanced up at the wall beside the chair. What was that apparatus up there?

“Alex,” Kara whispered, “that’s not Hank.”

Kara’s eyes could see things that Alex’s couldn’t, but Alex knew she was right.The light flickered in a strange, unhealthy way.

Then she heard the beeping. It was slow, but getting faster. Her heartbeat sped up along with it. “Kara…”

Kara fired at the apparatus on the wall with her heat vision.A blast of red shot out of her eyes and struck it in a shower of sparks. Hank flickered in and out of existence. Alex swore under her breath. “Fucking hologram,” she muttered.

The beeping continued to accelerate, and Alex’s heartbeat along with it.

“Bomb,” Kara decided.

She whirled around. “Get clear! Fire in the hole!” Alex yelled. Her men scattered in all directions but if the bomb was half as powerful as it ought to be for Fort Rozz tech, they wouldn’t be able to get far enough to avoid damage. Lane was a bad man, but his lieutenants didn’t deserve to die any more than her own did.

Hologram Hank vanished. The beeping became a single long, high pitched tone. She moved to dive out of the back of the container but Kara caught her in one arm. With the other arm, she held out her cape to further shield her from the heat coming off of the blast.

Alex closed her eyes and let Kara hold onto her.

 

_“But you can, can’t you,” Alex had insisted. “You’re just like him, you’re just like Superman, you can fly too, right?”_

_Kara had looked at her awkwardly and nodded.“I think so, yes.”_

_They’d snuck out onto the roof. They were supposed to be in bed. Eliza was supposed to be asleep. Alex didn’t know Kara very well back then, but she wanted to know what it felt like to fly, so badly. And Kara wanted to show her.They stood together where the slant of the roof was the least dramatic. Kara took her around the waist, held tight, and slowly lifted them up. The air was cool and the night was still and magical. This was what it was to be loved by a god._

_It was before she lost Jeremiah. It was before she had devoted her life to being the one thing standing between Kara and certain disaster. Trusting Kara’s abilities, her miraculous gift of flight, and her absolute commitment that she would never, ever let go of Alex ever, came effortlessly to her. She had lobbed herself into her sister’s arms that night in a way that she felt sure she would never do with anyone else again._

 

Alex felt the air rush past them. It roared, shooting from the container’s opening with a searing white light. She smelled the rubber on the back of her boots singe. She would marvel later at how much of the blast’s force Kara was able to absorb with her own body. She would count off the men in her cohort and they would all be accounted for. If any one of them had any doubts when they left base about Supergirl, her strength, or her benevolence, they surely had none now.

 _Astra,_ she thought, once the blast had subsided. _I trusted you._

 

 

****

 

 

Astra lay on the floor of her cell. She was alone. She knew the humans had gone.

She had come in here expecting to feel nothing. She knew there would be pain, but she had not expected to come in here to accumulate regrets.

In her current state, she could barely conjure anything else but sorrow, and most strongly in her mind was the destruction of Krypton. She wasn’t even there to see it die, as she should have been. She only got to hear about it from men who didn’t care what it would do to her to know it.

Close behind it was the sorrow of having lost the affection of the niece who had been the closest thing to a daughter she would ever have. It was Kara’s eyes, dark blue and studded with stars, gazing at her with grief and anger, that haunted Astra now.

And then lingering behind that, a strange sense of sadness that she had sent the human agent to what would very likely be her death. She had been the best of the humans, so far as Astra had seen. She knew that Alex Danvers’ honor would not permit her to allow anyone else to lead the mission to rescue her commander.Her role as his second would demand that she alone be responsible for his safety, as any good second would do.

Astra had read a great deal of Earth’s literature and in particular the work of its poets. More in fact than her husband was probably aware. She knew they were only words, and that a sick and injured culture might still produce some good words, but even with the awkwardness of translation, a few stood out. For some reason she thought of one now, in her weakened half-dream state. It wandered in unbidden, and left almost as quick, but for a moment, it was there:

 

_“Let me not to the marriage of true minds_

_Admit impediments. Love is not love_

_Which alters when it alteration finds,_

_Or bends with the remover to remove._

_O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark_

_That looks on tempests and is never shaken;_

_It is the star to every wand'ring bark,_

_Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.”_

 

She had forgot the rest. That piece had struck her so when she’d read it. She would not believe that minds that sought each other could not find each other. She would not believe that the love that burned in her chest, for Krypton, and what remained of it in the person of her niece and her husband, could be extinguished. Love had guided her through each and every hardship she had endured, and it guided her still. It was the lodestar that had brought her to war, to violence, to Fort Rozz, to the surface of the Earth, to the belly of the DEO.

She believed that under other circumstances, love might be a kinder guiding force, but at least it was always a steadfast one.Again, her heart ached and she replayed an image in her mind, the one of standing on a boat on the water, holding a young woman in her arms, her heart overwhelmed with love. Astra had no other memories like it, not from her own life; not the boat, not the young woman, and surely not the overwhelming love. Her marriage to Non had faded into the command structure, so much so that she could not even remember when they had last had sex.

So, even if it was not hers, she clung to the memory.If the story attached to that memory ended in sadness, she decided, she did not want to know.

For a moment she entertained the thought that she wished she had not sent Alexandra Danvers into a trap that she had laid long before this. The thought lingered among all of her other grief and sorrow.

And then it was gone.


	32. Minds That Seek Will Find

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ardith presses forward with her plans to seduce Ase, and finds herself getting seduced in the process.

Ase drank from the cup till she couldn’t breathe and had to stop. Mead trickled down one side of her chin. She laughed and handed the cup to Ardith, who was seated on her lap, one arm wrapped around her neck.

“More?” she said to Ardith.

Ardith shook her head. She didn’t understand.

Ase pointed to the drained cup, and then to the nearly-drained barrel of mead.“More,” she said again. “I want more.”

Ardith puzzled for a moment, then smiled. She got up and drew some more mead from the barrel, drank half of it as she walked backto Ase, and handed it to her, her eyes full of mischief. “More,” she said, handing it back.

Ase took it, pleased, and pulled her back down onto her lap. She kissed Ardith’s lips once, and then drank alittle more.

“You said you would win her over and it appears you have,” Bjorn remarked. Ase was drunk, but not oblivious to the skepticism in his voice.

“Hush, Bjorn. I told you it was possible.”

He smiled and nodded at Ardith. “Is it true, Ardith? Has Ase won your heart?”

The girl smiled at the sound of her name, but shrugged at Bjorn’s question. She was drinking heavily also. She had been insistent upon opening the mead, and at pouring cup after cup, not just for the two of them, but for her friends, and for all the crew aboard. Ase’s arm hooked around her waist and held her fast — Ardith was drunk enough that Ase worried she might fall off of her lap entirely and sprawl out on the deck.

She tilted her head forward and kissed Ardith’s shoulder. The girl made a happy sound in response. Ase looked forward to having her, but she remained restrained. She wanted to be sure the girl wanted her and that this was not the falsehood Bjorn so clearly worried it was.

They sat upon wooden boxes in the torch light. It was night, and because the sea was calm, and Brida had rigged together a brazier and put on a pot of _skause,_ which they had been eating from all night.

Ase remembered that Bjorn had suggested it might be wise to speak to the crew tonight, and now, with everyone well pissed and sitting around singing war songs, seemed like as good a time as she might hope for. They needed their blood roused after the rough defeat in Suth-Sæxe and needed to be reminded of the riches they carried and the glory it would earn them.

Ase gazed at her. “You are even more beautiful in torch light,” she said, and kissed her. The kiss felt real, and the girl’s mouth was soft and wanted hers. Ase thought perhaps no kisses had ever had such magic as this. After drinking her fill of Ardith’s soft lips, she turned to those who sat in the torchlight, and addressed them:

“We set out from Langadalr in search of treasure, and glory,” she began. She paused, looking around at each of the faces that stopped in their various exchanges to regard her. “And we have found it! The hold of this ship is filled with relics and treasures and supplies from Frisia, Francia, and yes, Suth-Sæxe.”

“The only treasures from Suth-Sæxe are sitting on your lap and tied to the barrel,” Ingrid quipped.

Ase gave her a piercing look and she closed her mouth. “You have all served me bravely. We return home rich men and women.” She paused, looking for an objector. Harald was sullen, but she found none. “Harald, I know Halftan was like your brother and I am sorry you have lost him. We all lost friends and brothers on this raid. The little village in Suth-Sæxe was more difficult to take than we expected. In fact, Ardith had a sister who spoke Danish, so we can only guess that we were not, after all, the first Danes to go there.” She paused for dramatic effect. “But it means that we were the first Danes to go there and live to tell about it!”

This roused the crew and they stomped their feet in approval and murmured among themselves.

“Be proud, my people! You’ve suffered losses but you return home heroes. The king will remember Langadalr for its brave warriors and proud shield maidens. Some of you shield maidens, like you, Brida, have been with me since the days when we first fought beside Njord to beat back the Swedes under Jarl Einar at Fjollum.” Brida and a few other shield maidens nodded. “A warrior’s life is usually short,” she went on, “but if you choose your wars wisely and fight them bravely, you will live long enough to recount battles that others only know as legend.”

Fjollum, after all, was legend. It was on that battlefield that she had fallen in love with Njord, after all. And on that battlefield had he risen to become jarl of Langadalr.

“Karsi,” she demanded, pointing to one of the younger men seated across from her. “Are you a legend?”

He looked uncertain. “Um, yes?”

“With conviction!” she exhorted.

“Yes!” he answered, jabbing at the air with his fist, perhaps a little too sloppily, for he nearly knocked himself over.

“Tore,” she went on, pointing to another oarsman, “are you a legend?”

“Yes!” he responded immediately.

“Hungerd!” she called out to a shield maiden drawing herself another mead. “Are you a legend?”

Hungerd, who was drunk, drew her sword for effect and shouted, “Yes!”

Through the ranks she went, demanding of each that they declare themselves legend. The mood was boisterous. Bjorn’s advice was good, as usual.

Then Harald rose to his feet, weaving slightly, and pointed a finger at Ase.

_“A legend is a story told to fools_

_For foolish jarls to cover their misrules_

_When they are ruled by what’s between their thighs_

_A minute on my cock might put them wise.”_

 

A little gasp rippled through the drunken crew. It was not the first time they had done this. But it was folly, because Ase was never beaten at _senna_.

She sighed dramatically. _Really, you drunken idiot?_ She smirked at him, patted Ardith’s hip, and stood up.Ardith sat down in her place.She approached him, full of as much swagger as ever.

 

_“Aminute? You would hardly last a second!_

_Such reckoning need not even be reckoned._

_So perhaps you shouldn’t give me such advice,_

_When even Karsi’s bent you over once or twice!”_

 

She gestured at Karsi, who shook his head vigorously. “I never fucked Harald!” he protested, laughing with embarrassment. The crew was applauding and a few gave Karsi joking slaps on the back.

Harald clutched at his chest as though she had wounded him, but he was grinning all the same. He gamely tried again:

_“It’s quite a loss for you, your husband’s dead_

_And there’s no longer women in his bed_

_With so unwomanly a wife as she_

_Who fucks young girls for all Langadalr to see!”_

 

Ase laughed out loud. Drunken hoots and clapping erupted from the crew. She replied:

_“Not just young girls but older women too_

_Your mother says I’m much better than you.”_

 

Hilde cackled and flung herself onto the deck, pretending to writhe in pain. Harald winced. She stared him down, challenging him to respond. He stood frozen. He had nothing. She smiled.

_“You did your best and came at me with vigor_

_But now it’s time to admit my cock is bigger.”_

 

Harald laughed so hard, he doubled over. A younger man came over with a large cup of mead to mark her victory, and Ase drank deep and triumphant. “You fucking fool,” she said to him warmly, “have yourself a drink too. You never beat me.” She took him by the shoulder.

“Yes,” he agreed, “but the fun is in trying, isn’t it?”

She nodded. After a moment, she became earnest. “You took an arrow for me in Skarvøld, and I will never forget it.”

He gave her a pained smile. “I loved you,” he slurred, equally earnest. The mead was making him far too honest. “I still do.”

Ase sighed. “And I you, Harald. As a brother.”

He nodded. Ase knew it was not what he meant. But he would never have her heart. He was too great a fool. And he knew it.

 

 

**

 

Ase was still riding her little victory high when she walked back to Ardith, who looked up at her with curiosity. “I wish you understood more Danish, my love,” she told her. “You would have enjoyed the _senna_ , I think.” She extended her hand, and Ardith took it and stood.

She guided Ardith to the stern, out of the torchlight, and stood behind her, holding her around the waist with one arm. With their backs to the crew, who had moved on to telling ribald stories, they had what passed for a moment of privacy. She pointed out over the water with her iron hand. “See the moon,” she murmured into her ear. “It’s so large and perfect at sea. I know you can’t understand me, but you are every bit as beautiful to me as the night sky over the sea.” She kissed the side of her neck once, and felt her body soften and relax against her.Ardith sighed and murmured something in English.

Ase felt moved, and held the girl close to her, and murmured:

_“You fierce, bright beauty, wild as the sea,_

_More full of fire than seers could foresee,_

_You’ve lit me with desire that makes ashes of my rhymes,_

_You and I were planned in the time before time.”_

 

And she believed it. She could not explain the pull, but it was more than her loins aching for the girl. She felt a deep, desperate love too great to explain or argue with.

Ase’s hand of flesh and blood strayed up Ardith’s belly and paused at her ribcage. “I can feel you,” she continued softly, “muscle and sinew, so limber and strong. And your mind, so clever. I cannot wait to have you.” She lingered there, her hand just below Ardith’s breast, and continued to nibble at the side of the girl’s neck until she was whimpering quietly. Ase knew the sound; it transcended language. It was the sound of a woman wanting to be touched. She smiled.

Her head was foggy with the mead and her lust was awake and hungry. “I believe that you do want me as I want you,” she sighed, “but you understand, I must be sure.”

With this, she took one of the girl’s small breasts in hand and caressed it through the rough fabric of the _kyrtill_. Ardith gasped and stiffened against her for a moment. Asepaused, kissed the back of her neck, waited for herto relax again. “Yes?” she questioned. That, she knew Ardith understood. She would do nothing that the girl did not want.

A brief pause followed in which Ase held still, and then Ase felt her nod quickly. “Yes,” she whispered.

Her left hand might beiron, but her right was silk, and she brushed her fingers down the outside of Ardith’s breast, then the underside, feeling her breath quicken as she touched. Ase slipped her fingertips down the front of her breast then, and over the hardened nipple that poked through the fabric. Ardith gasped again, a soft little sound that made Ase growl in her ear, “Good girl.” And she felt Ardith’s hands reach back and dig fingers into her thighs, gripping as though she held on to the earth itself.

The weight ofArdith’s head was heavy against Ase’s wounded shoulder, but she cared not at all. The girl was responding to her, arching into her touch. Ase luxuriated a long time in a gentle exploration of that one lovely breast and the way it made Ardith seem to press intoher. “I am a good girl,” she heard Ardith mutter, and it was enough to make Ase stop her caresses to take a fistful of the kyrtill, wanting tear it off and have her right there.

But no. That would not do. Ardith was not some slave or some whore to be fucked on display. She was Ase’s woman now.She turned the girl around and looked at her. “Jorunn said we are destined, and that none can tear our threads apart.” She stroked Ardith’s cheek. “I know you don’t understand what I say, but I believe that minds that seek one another will find one another. Spirits that love one another cannot help but do otherwise.” And she drew Ardith into a deep, slow kiss.

 

 

***

 

 

Ardith had been drunk for several hours now. She had been getting her friends drunk as well, since it was hardly fair otherwise, and had been filling every cup she could find to pass mead to the crew. 

And now here she stood, at the stern of the ship, with Ase’s arms around her, and her body in a state of flush. Despite herself, despite the anger that still burned in her heart, everything about Ase’s touch, everything about her body, and most especially her mouth, excited Ardith. She gripped the Dane’s hips and pressed herself against them. Aching with lust and with mead-numbed emotions, she poured herself into the hot kiss. The press of Ase’s iron hand against her lower back was strange, heavy, unyielding. Anger and desire wound around on themselves and rose up in her chest, and she bit Ase’s lip hard.

She heard a hiss of pain. Ase’s one strong arm remained tight around her waist, but the other hand dug into Ardith’s hair and yanked her head back. The hot pain in her scalp as she succumbed to the quick, forcefull pull only served to excite her further. She stared up into Ase’s blazing eyes. The low thunder of the Dane’s voice sent shivers down Ardith’s back as she growled, “ _Vær ikke en dårlig pige._ ” Ardith tried to kiss her again, but Ase would not release her hair and held her head precisely where it was. She didn’t know whether to be afraid or aroused.

Ase tilted her head down and ran the tip of her tongue over Ardith’s parted lips. She still did not release Ardith, would not allow her to lean into the kiss. She simply teased her mouth, again and again, until Ardith ached enough to remember the words Ase had taught her earlier: “ _Mere. Jeg vil have mere._ ” _More. I want more._

Still gripping her hair tightly, Ase licked into her mouth, claiming it entirely with her kiss. Ardith went weak, and gave herself to it. She would not be sorry to end her, but she would be sorry to not feel this again, the tingle in her blood, the warmth in her sex. It had become less mysterious why men fought and bled for women, why they wrote poems and sang songs about wanting them.

Ase let go of her hair and Ardith kissed her hotly. “Will you have me tonight?” she panted, pressing herself into Ase’s arms.

Ase considered her a moment, as if she understood the question, then guided her back to the barrel with her friends. “ _Maske snårt,_ ” she answered. _“Men ikke i aften. Ikke endnu.”_

She had heard those words before.

Ase returned with heavy woolen blankets for Ardith and her friends, who still remained tied. But Ardith was not bound. Ase kissed her, long and deep, and left her there to sleep, rather than bring her below as she had expected. Did she presume to be protecting Ardith’s virtue?

_Maske snårt. Men ikke i aften._

Damnable Dane, what the devil did it mean?


	33. Love Unstopped By Time and Tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myoge and Aguri slip away from the zendo to attend a Tanabata festival in a nearby village. They encounter some surprises.

Evening was falling.Across the village, lanterns were illuminated one by one, orbs of yellow and red and pink and blue.“It’s beautiful, don’t you think?”

“It is,” Aguri allowed. Myoge’s mood was quiet, as often, but light hearted.Aguri was still very much on her guard. She didn’t want to be recognized, and she remained unconvinced that Myoge’s executive decision would be approved by the roshi when they arrived back at the monastery.“But are you sure we’re allowed to go outside the walls like this?”

Myoge looked at her, amusementplaying around her mouth. “Surely you’re not afraid? The great general?”

“Hush!” Aguri swatted at Myoge’s sleeve.They walked on toward the lights, staffs in hand.

“We go outside the walls all the time,” Myoge went on. “We go and meditate in the forest, and we paint on the hillside and spar in the groves.Why are you so worried?” 

“But… being around… people…” Aguri trailed off.The evening was mild. Spring had become summer, and stars were poking through the vault of sky, one by one.Soon enough, she’d be able to see them all, and find the ones that were the reason for the festival.

“No-one will be looking for a humble Buddhist nun.If they haven’t given you up for dead, they’ll still be looking for Aguri, the great general, in her black kimono with those fearsome colors.”

“But my hair,” Aguri fretted.She feared the white streak would render her too recognizable.

Myoge smiled.She took off the basket hat that was bobbing along against her back as she walked.“Here. I’m not wearing it anyway. No more problems.”

Aguri wasn’t entirelyconvinced, but as they drew nearer to the village, they saw the streams of couples walking hand in hand, and heard the music of drums, and the laughter of teenagers in the streets, buying cakes from the merchant’s stalls, and the mood crept upon her.

Myoge smiled at her.“No rain,” she commented. 

Aguri nodded.“No rain, no tears.” 

Orihime, the weaver girl, would be able to cross the night sky and embrace Hikoboshi, the cowherd boy, and all those below who beheld their stars coming together would celebrate their love with poems and songs. “Tanabata was always my favorite festival,” Aguri remarked.

Myoge smiled. “Really? I would have thought it was too Buddhist for your liking.” 

“Buddhist?” Aguri objected. “It was a Shinto festival first.Orihime was a shinto _miko_ , who wove in a temple, that is why we have Weaver Girl.” 

Myoge laughed.“The name is Shinto, but the festival was Buddhist first. The lanterns are meant as a prelude to the Bon festival next month.”

Aguri forgot her worries and shook herhead, smiling.“Buddhism doesn’t own lanterns.” It wasn’t a real argument. It was only more sparring. And there was nothing in the world she enjoyed so much as their sparring. 

“I suppose,” Myogemused, “it depends on what you feel is the most important part of Tanabata. Is it the wishes? Or the love poetry?”

Aguri looked up.As they drew nearerthe center of the village, the arms of the bamboo plants were more and more thick with the wishes of young men and women, written on strips of brightly colored paper and fastened to the branches.Later, they would be sent up in smoke and offered up to the stars. “The poetry, of course.”

“Hm,” Myoge said thoughtfully.She gestured up at the branches, where all the wishes hung. “I was always fond of the wishes.”

“Wished for skills, did you?” Aguri prodded.

“Yes, although probably not the skills most other girls were asking for,” Myoge chuckled.“Even as a girl I preferred weapons training to weaving.”

“It hardly surprises me.”

Their conversations often proceeded slowly these days.Aguri had learned to enjoy the quiet space in between their remarks, take pleasure in feeling Myoge’s presence as she considered what she had said and then chose the right words in response. 

“So then what did you wish for?Poetry skills?”

“I didn’t need to wish.”

Myoge laughed again.“So much pride in your poetry. You’ve boasted of it quite often, you know.”

Aguri looked up into the sky again, rather than at Myoge.The thump of some nearby drums tapped at the edge of her consciousness.“It is not pride, nor boasting. I took great care with it.”

“I’m certain you did. You do nothing without the utmost conviction.”

“You mock me.”

“I would never.”They looked at each other for a moment in seriousness, and then Myoge cracked a smile. “I would, actually, and I have. But I’m not this time.”

Aguri’s heart felt warm.

“So show me,” Myoge pressed. “You have succeeded in rousing my curiosity.”

They moved slower now, as the crowds grew thicker.This was a small village, not a particularly wealthy one, but the young couples walking together were dressed in their best kimono and with all the shining lanterns, and the love and hope in the air, it was as beautiful as the most lavish court festival. She had a brief, sad moment of remembering when her love with Noboru was new.“When the mood strikes me,” she promised. She did not want to share poetry while he was lingering in her heart.

“Hm,” was all Myoge said.

The air smelled of young women’s perfume and sweet bean cakes.The bamboo whispered with the added voices of all the wishes fastened to it. A few young girls bounded past, scattering flower petals and laughing. “Happy Tanabata!” they shouted, and Myoge nodded to them, smiling.

Aguri wandered over to a shorter bamboo plant to which several handwritten wishes were attached, reading them.“This one wants a husband,” she murmured.

“This one wants to be better at weaving,” Myoge commented, leafing through the strips of paper.

Aguri continued flicking through the wishes. “Better handwriting.”

“Boring,” Myoge snorted. She began chuckling. “This one wants to be more charming and literate. And look… he has misspelled literate.”

Aguri looked.Myoge was correct. She laughed. “Well then, it’s a very apt wish, don’t you think?”

Myoge smiled. “I hope he gets it. If only for the sake of the woman he charms.”

“Those bean cakes smell delicious,” Aguri sighed wistfully, watching the girls dance along the main rut of the village.

“Shall I get us some?”

“How?” Aguri laughed. “We have no money.”

“Watch,” Myoge said, and she walked to the stall selling the sweet cakes. She smiled at the old man. “Blessings for Tanabata,” she said sweetly. Her smile was warm, and the old man was clearly charmed by her pretty face and kind manner.

He shrugged in her direction, but smiled. “It’s for the young people, really.”

She bowed in response.“Just so. So, don’t you have a wish, then, young fellow?”

He laughed a wheezy laugh. “I wish my daughter in law would stop trying to feed me her terrible soup! But I don’t think I can put that on a bamboo branch.”

Myoge laughed and it tinkled like silver bells. She leaned forward with a conspiratorial smile and stage whispered, “Write what you like! I won’t tell.”

He grinned toothlessly at her.“What about you? Any wishes for you?”

She gave him a beatific smile. “Only Buddhahood.”She bowed again. “But if you could spare a pair of hungry nuns some sweet bean cakes, I can promise you that the Buddha would say it was an act of devotion.”

He harumphed, but she had been too charming and he was now in a generous mood.He wrapped two little cakes in a bit of paper and passed it to her.“I can’t give you Buddhahood, but I hope you enjoy the cakes.”

Myoge offered him profuse thanks.

Aguri bowed to him, and took one of the cakes. She stared wonderingly at Myoge as they walked away.“How did you do that?”

Myoge shrugged. “I was kind.”

“You’ve done that before,” she accused.

Myoge licked the sticky red paste off her fingers before responding. “Are you enjoying your cake?”

Aguri stopped, realizing she’d not yet sampled hers.She tasted it, and it was as she remembered it; sweet, starchy, warm, melting on her tongue and sticking to the roof of her mouth. She closed her eyes, and for a moment, forgot she was annoyed, and savored it.“Delicious,” she sighed. She opened her eyes to find Myoge gazing at her, looking very satisfied with herself. 

“It isn’t so terrible to accept charity,” Myoge scolded, but there was little real reproach in her tone.

Aguri wrinkled her nose at Myoge. “You’re very good at it.”

Myoge smiled. “We put right actions and right intent into the world. There is no shame in accepting some back.”

They walked to where the drummers were playing, and more young people danced and laughed. They found seats on a couple of wooden boxes and ate their bean cakes, and Aguri, who had mostly gotten used to the more gentle flavors of food at Deepest Mountain, was reveling in such a pure sensory delight. She was licking the last of the sticky cake from her fingers, making sure to miss none, when she noticed Myoge watching her with amusement. “What?” she demanded.

“Your unrestrained joy over a bean cake. That alone was worth the journey.”

Aguri flushed, hoping that her basket hat was enough to keep Myoge from seeing it.

“So,” Myoge asked her, “has the mood struck you yet?”

Aguri’s pulse hesitated for a moment. “Are you insisting?”

“As your _senpai_ ,” Myoge teased, “I am insisting.”

 

********

 

Myoge was not sure how good a nun she really was. The roshi liked her, but she was never sure whether that was because she was truly practicing dharma well, or because he simply liked having someone around who appreciated his humor.

Now, she was goading Aguri to recite some poetry for no other reason than her own burning curiosity to know whether Aguri was as good as she seemed to think.She fixed her with an expectant look, waiting to see what she would produce.

Aguri spent a long time gazing at the long rows of lanterns.Finally, she spoke.

_“Why does your heart’s sigh_

_Tease my skin and hair like winds_

_From a warm and foreign shore?_

 

_Your heart calls for mine_

_My kiss is saved for your mouth_

_My eyes want no light but yours.”_

 

Myoge’s breath halted for a split second. Of course it was good. Aguri became good at everything she bothered to do.“It’s beautiful,” she finally said. “Rather romantic.” It stirred memories for her, of carrying the stone of desire in her heart. For half a moment she forgot that that had only led to sadness for her.

Aguri shrugged. “It’s Tanabata.” She gestured around to all the couples.“It’s in the air, you know.”

Myoge grinned. She wanted another. “Have you got more?”

“More? So greedy!” Aguri laughed.

“Only if you think you can,” Myoge teased. “I mean, perhaps you’ve only got the one, and that’s alright.” She grinned impishly.

Aguri smirked, knowing full well she was being baited. She thought for a moment more, and Myoge could see the counting going on in her head, slicing up the thoughts, and then the words and then the syllables. After a moment, she had another. She took a breath.

_“How do autumn leaves_

_Take the shape of a lover_

_Whose gentle touch stains my heart?_

 

_Illusions may go_

_But their beauty leaves traces–_

_Memories of their falling.”_

 

Myoge felt a curious wave of feeling at this, difficult to identify but powerful and disconcerting. She became suddenly, annoyingly aware of her own heartbeat.A moment of breathing, and she was righted again. “You are still very close to your memories of romantic love.”

Aguri shrugged. “Yes. But I’m learning to think about them differently.” She gazed a long time at Myoge, then became suddenly playful again.“Alright, now, you’ve got to do one!”

Myoge demurred. “I never said I was a poet.”

“Yet I suspect that you are.”

Myoge had in fact written her fair share when she was younger. She wasn’t sure she was as good as Aguri, but she felt it had been respectable enough. “I don’t think so.”

“What was your name before this?” Aguri asked.

Myoge snorted.“Fine, a poem then.”

Aguri clapped, delighted that her gambit had worked.

Myoge sighed. She thought about Aguri’s poems, so full of longing. She thought about the love that the Buddha taught, love for all people and all things. She thought about that love, its eternal nature, and how the two stars, Orihime and Hikoboshi, came together each year, joined through that same eternal nature.Aguri seemed just about to prod her, but then she spoke:

_“Why do these two stars_

_Meet and pass and meet again_

_A cycle of love and loss?_

 

_Souls that seek will find_

_Love unstopped by time and tide–_

_Even the heavens make way.”_

 

Aguri leaned on her staff, considering Myoge for a while. “Souls that seek will find love… unstopped by time and tide. Not a very Buddhist sentiment, is it?” she teased.

Myoge shrugged. “Poetic license. In keeping with the mood.” She shuffled one of her feet in the dirt, wondering what she ought to do now.She was strangely without a quick-witted reply.

Aguri touched her shoulder.“Actually,” she said, slow and thougthful, “there is nothing more Buddhist than the inexorable love that binds us all to one another, isn’t that so?” Even in shadow, Myoge could see she was smiling at her so very softly. She could remember when someone last looked at her that way, but it had been a very long time ago. She was more shaken than she felt she ought to be.

She was learning. As Myoge had suspected, watching her come into this new stage of existence was like watching a closed lotus flower open in the light of dawn. “Yes, that’s exactly right.”

They held still for a moment, looking at each other, breathing silent breaths in this little shared moment of dawn. Then mercifully, Aguri announced, “Wait here, I’ll see if I can find us some water. My mouth still feels sticky after that bean cake.”

 

 

******

 

 

Aguri walked away from Myoge, gripping her staff.She had been meditating for months now and was able to make the world fall away, but always, always in the emptiness, was Myoge. Even when they were not beside one another, she was aware of her light. And now, as she wandered through the streets of the village, she came to the inescapable conclusion that while she had let go of a great many things in her time at the zendo, she had also become attached to Myoge in a way that was deeper than she could even explain.

She thought of the moment they had just shared, the warmth of Myoge’s shoulder beneath her palm, the luminous smile in the warm glow of the lanterns, and her head framed in stars. Her chest ached; it felt as though it were full of drunken butterflies wheeling around, trying to beat their way out with ridiculous soft wings.

Only her soldier’s instincts kept her from losing herself completely in such thoughts. At the periphery of her awareness, she sensed a scuffle of some sort brewing. She shifted her focus. Down a small side street, a group of five tipsy ronin had surrounded a young woman who was neatly dressed and glaring at them.“Give it back!” she was commanding.

One of them was hefting a sack in one hand that jingled when he tossed it up and down. “A young lady like you shouldn’t be running around with so much money,” he leered. “It’s not safe.”

“Do you know who my uncle is?” she demanded. “He’ll have your heads, you masterless drunks!” With all the noise of the festivities, it was unsurprising that the altercation wasn’t attracting much attention.

Aguri strode over, covering the ground with great strides. “Surely,” she scolded, “it doesn’t take five of you to rob a single unarmed girl. Where’s the honor in that?”

Another of them grunted. “Mind your business, nun.”

“We’re not robbing her,” another one added, “we’re just offering to protect her. We just want a little money for our trouble.”

“I can protect her perfectly well,” Aguri said, planting the end of her staff in the dirt before her.

The first ronin, the one holding the sack of coins, drew his sword. “What are you going to do with that little piece of wood?” he mocked.

Aguri’s grace and swiftness had only increased during her time in the monastery.She was upon the fool before he could even respond, striking him in the middle of his forehead with the butt end of the staff and knocking him to the ground with a thud. Aguri caught the sack of coins as it flew from his hands, and it landed with a satisfying, heavy clink. “That is what I am going to do with this piece of wood,” she spat.

The rasp and then the bright note of steel singing followed as four _katana_ left their sheaths.Aguri winced.There was no way to avoid making a scene now. But neither could she allow these fools to continue their ill-chosen path.

She tossed the sack to the girl. “Take these and go!” she commanded, and turned her attention back to the four.She quickly assessed the situation.They were four, and she was one. They were armed with steel and she, only with wood. But they were young,drunk, and by her estimation, probably not terribly well trained. The one she had knocked down had failed to consider her a possible threat and had not acted swiftly when she fell upon him. Even calling these rascals _ronin_ was probably too generous. Every small town had a few idiots that managed to scrape up the money for a sword and ran around claiming to be warriors.

Certainly, it would not be like fighting Riku, Junichiro and Hinata.

She took the staff and twirled it lightly in her hands, demonstrating her facility with it. “You can leave here with wounded pride, or wounded heads. The choice is yours.”

They glanced among themselves, clearly calculating their odds.Deciding that they still had the numbers in their favor, they advanced upon her.

“Wounded heads, then,” she sighed.

As she expected, they were unskilled and even though she still led with her left hand these days, she was so accustomed to it that shehardly felt encumbered anymore. The staff whirled in her hands as she struck forward and back, left and right. It was too easy. She found joy only in her own grace, but none in fighting such unworthy opponents. Within minutes, the five sat sprawled on the ground, nursing bruises and groaning, cursing her.A small crowd had gathered at the end of the alley to watch a Buddhist nun make quick work of a group of drunk _ronin_. 

Myoge pushed to the front of the crowd, surveyed the scene quickly, and ran to Aguri.“What did you do?” she demanded. “You were afraid of drawing attention to yourself, and then you do this?”

Aguri now noticed that her basket hat had been knocked off of her head at some point and was laying against her back.She quickly tugged it back on, sighing.She gestured to where the girl stood, staring at them. “I could not allow them to act as they were. They were trying to extort this girl for her money.” She turned to look at the young woman for the first time.“Are you unharmed?”

The alleyway had been dim when Aguri had come running in, and she had not gotten a proper look at her face.But now, she saw the girl’s eyes, wide as saucers, staring at her with recognition. “Aunt Aguri?”

Myoge groaned. “Your niece?”

Aguri gaped in disbelief. “Keiko?”

The young woman ran to Aguri and threw her arms around her.Aguri could not remember when she had last been so embraced.After a moment of stunned stillness, she held her niece tightly.

“Aguri,” Myoge said, more urgently, “I think it best if we get out of public and head back to the zendo now.”

Keiko withdrew from her aunt and spun around.She stared for a moment at Myoge.Aguri saw a look of surprise and possibly alarm cross Myoge’s features.Keiko covered her mouth with her hand, and then gasped, “Akane? Is that you?”


	34. As Long As Wakefulness Persists

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We see exactly what happened before Alex and Kara left on that unfortunate mission.

Astra stood in her cell, calmly contemplating her situation. She expected that this entire escapade was going perhaps too much to plan. It was the way of live combat. Having a strategy was only half the battle. One had to be prepared for a variety of tactical responses. A plan that went too smoothly was a plan that was about to present one with a great problem.

The doors slid open and a man in clothing of mottled grey and green entered. He was clearly in command of the retinue of eight or so men, clearly military, who marched in behind him. He was stocky and weathered, and when he took off his cap, he had greying hair cropped close to his head. He had seen a great deal of combat. One could always recognize that particular kinship with another. 

“My name,” he began, “is General Samuel Lane, United States Army.”

She offered a curt nod out of respect to his rank. They were equals, even if she was behind plexi at the moment.“I wonder how many of your fellow humans you had to kill to achieve that rank.”

He smirked. “You know, I always feared your kind,” he continued. “Aliens. Especially your type, with godlike powers and ill intent. Ever since I was a boy, and saw a movie, a story called The Day the Earth Stood Still.Do you know it?”

Astra shook her head.

“No, I don’t imagine you would.Well, nevermind. It scared the bejeezus out of me. Never in my life did I imagine that one day, I would be fighting threats from other worlds, aliens with superhuman powers, aiming to conquer my race. Can you imagine that? Your childhood nightmares coming to life?”

She gazed at him, full of suspicion. Generals didn’t do interrogations themselves. Not unless it was something that required that level of clearance. Some things were the same almost everywhere you went. “It takes great courage to admit one’s fears to an adversary.”

He nodded. “I do so because I want you to understand that I am a man of honor.”

That was never a good sign. If someone was a man of honor, they did not need to announce it to you. Their actions showed it.

“And I want you to know, I take no pleasure in what comes next.”

The plexi opened, and three of his men entered. With her powers stripped away, she could only resist them for so long, although she noted with pride that she had split one’s lip open before they succeeded in pinning her arms behind her back and forcing her to her knees.She saw a fourth man coming into the cell, holding an open weapons cases filled with row upon row of green, glowing syringes. She knew what was in them.

She continued to struggle, but she was outmatched.Her eyes grew wide as the inevitability of her fate descended on her. 

The hydraulic doors to the room hissed open, and Kara came charging in with Alexandra Danvers in her wake. “General!” the human cried, horrified. She pushed past Kara and came striding towards him. “This is _not_ how we operate!”

“You can’t do this!” Kara was screaming.

 _Blood does bond us,_ she thought dizzily.

The general was unmoved. “She represents a threat. We need to get the information she holds and your tactics have so far been remarkable for their lack of success.” He gestured around at the other four men who were flanking him, making clear that he had no problem with having them forcibly removed. “Or are we going to have an argument here?”

Alex glared at him. Kara was trying to charge into the cell and drag them off of her, but Alex grabbed and held her.“Kara, Kara you can’t do that, you don’t have your powers, you’re just going to get hurt!”

Astra was dimly aware of the first kryptonite syringe being tapped, and its point descending toward her. She continued to struggle in the grasp of the military men, but her eyes were focused on her niece, and the human who was holding tightly to her, keeping her from harm.

“There’s got to be another way!” Alex was protesting, even as she pulled Kara away from the cell.

“There is no other way,” the general answered, implacable as rock.

“There is _always_ another way!” Alex shot back, her urgency increasing.

“I have had enough of this!” he shouted over Kara’s screaming. “Show yourselves out, or my men will!”

Astra felt the needle plunge into her shoulder.She was filled with a surging, searing pain that roared through her bloodstream.She just kept her eyes on her niece’s grief-filled face, and the anger in Alex’s eyes, even as she was dragging Kara to the door.

 _She cares,_ she thought, but Astra wasn’t even sure who she meant. She retreated into her training, into the quiet place deep in her mind, where she ran over and over the specifics of the hydrogen atom as the humans who worshipped the nailed god did with their prayer beads, and she kept her peace there, while someone with her voice screamed outside her head.

 

*********

 

Alex had not been able to watch the entirety of what went on. She had turned off the sound ten minutes ago.

She knew a thing or two about military history. General Lane was afraid of jack-booted alien fascists coming to take over the world, but Astra had been a political prisoner. She had been fighting against an apathetic government to ensure her own people’s survival. Those weren’t the actions of a conqueror. They were those of a revolutionary.None of this made sense.

Kara sat in a chair in J’onn’s old office, alternately sobbing and dead-eyed as they observed on the screen. As Lane’s man readied what had to be the third needle, Alex put a hand on her shoulder. “I know you want to honor her suffering, but I don’t think you need to watch this. Can I turn it off?”

But Kara shook her head, and watched the whole time. “How can they do this?” she demanded of nobody in particular. And Alex knew, that she was both horrified that it was happening to anyone at all, and horrified that it was happening to Astra. And what was more, that a little voice in her head wondered how easily she herself might wind up on the other side of the plexi, being tortured in the same exact way.

“We should have…” Kara began, but it dissolved into sobs.

Alex shook her head. “There were eight of them, Kara. And two of us. And you didn’t have your powers. And technically, Lane is in command, here. There was no way to make that go right side up.”

In the end, Astra did give up a location and Lane’s men left her there in a ragged heap on the floor of the cell. Alex was near tears herself, but she needed to be Kara’s rock now, so she found her calm, and offered, “I’m going to go get some supplies and some food, and I’m going to go in there and check her vitals and see if I can make her feel any better. Do you want to come?”

Shaking with rage and grief, with her knees drawn up to her chin, Kara shook her head. “I don’t think I can face her.”

Once again, Alex was the left hand, doing the things that right hand couldn’t.And here she stood, half an hour later, outside the holding room, clutching a medkit and a white paper bag.Alex drew a deep breath before entering.

Astra lay shivering on the floor ofher cell. She looked considerably less regal than the last time Alex had seen her. Alex’s free hand drifted to her waist, where a kryptonite gun satholstered snug against her.

“Holding it together, General?” she asked. It felt stupid to ask; how could she be?

Astra wheezed a little in response. “So you’ve come to mock me.”

Alex frowned. “No.”Shedrew closer to the cell. “I would have stopped this if I could have.We may be enemies, but I don’t accept this. It was not a right action.”

Astra’s face was a mask of weary detachment. “Why not? You humans love your violence.”

Alex snorted. “Rich, coming from someone who’s caused so much destruction already.”She sighed. “But I suppose you’re not wrong, either.I’m not a great fan of it myself.”

“Then,” Astra sighed through parched lips,almost seeming amused, “you have chosen a very strange profession.”

Alex smirked. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you. The Buddha says, ‘One is not called noble who harms living beings. By _not_ harming living beings, one is called noble.’ So, I do my best to protect others from harm.”

“Hm,” was all Astra said. And then, “So the Buddha is your god?”

“More like a teacher.”She placed her hand on the access panel. “I’m going to open this door, Astra, and administer proper care. I’m not someone who wants to hurt you. If you try to harm me,I’ll do what I have to do, and please know that my sidearm is kryptonite enabled.”

Astra gave a half-hearted scoff. “I can barely speak. I am no threat.”

Satisfied, Alex opened the access panel, and then shut the cell door behind her. _When one is locked in a cramped cage with a tiger, it’s small comfort that the tiger isn’t feeling well,_ she thought. She knelt down behind Astra’s prone body and began taking her vitals. Her pulse was still a little erratic. No surprise there.

“Tell me, what else does your Buddha preach?”

“Compassion,” Alex answered, taking a cuff and wrapping it snug around Astra’s arm to take her blood pressure. “Love for all things. Right action, right intent.”

That last seemed to resonate with Astra. She didn’t respond, but her expression changed, as though she was considering the deeper implications of that idea. She groaned a little as Alex squeezed the bulb to inflate the cuff and get a reading.

“And what,” Astra asked weakly, “do you think of my intent?”

“I don’t know. I think you believe what you’re doing is right,” Alex said. “I hope this isn’t too uncomfortable.”Her blood pressure was low. It was no wonder she was shivering so much.

“You are doing your best to make it not be so,” Astra said, and she sounded grateful. “What else does your Buddha say?” 

Alex thoughtfor a moment.What could she share that would mean something to her?“What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now.” She took out a small in-ear thermometer. “Please hold still, I’m taking your temperature.”

Astra lay still, considering those words. “What does it mean?”

“It means,” Alex answered, hitting a small button to record Astra’s troublingly low temperature, “that you are the sum of every decision you make. But you can make new decisions, right now, in the present, that will shape what you become. It means that what you become is under your sole control.”

“It is quite different from the Raoite concept of the immutable soul,” Astra remarked. 

Alex laid down her tools. “Raoism as it has been explained to me seems like determinism, which is not really my style. Now, if you can turn onto yourback, you can prop your head on my lap and I’m going to see if I can’t get some of what’s in that white bag into you.”

Astra eyed the bag. “What is in the bag?”

“Chicken noodle soup.”

“What is … chicken noodle soup?”

“It’s food, but it’s also medicine. Easy on the stomach. Full of vitamins, minerals, salt, electrolytes and good fats.”

Astra began to object.“I do not require—”

Alex cut her off. “Don’t be a child. Put down your goddamn pride for half a second and let me care for you. Christ! You’re worse than Kara. Is it a Kryptonian thing? Are you all like this when you’re sick?”

Astra almost laughed. “A culture based on perfection means… that infirmity carries a stigma.” 

“Well, perfection sucks,” Alex grumbled.She opened the bag, and pulled out a small cup.She tugged the top off of it and a little cloud of steam left some fog on the plexi.

“It has its flaws,” Astra sighed, her voice faint.

Alex pulled a plastic spoon out of the bag and left it sitting in the cup as she gently assisted Astra in turning over with painful slowness.“And here I thought,” she commented wryly, one hand underneath Astra’s ribcage, “that you had no sense of humor.”

“I am …extremely funny,” Astra deadpanned. After a momentof effort, they managed to turn Astra so that she was onher back, with her head resting in Alex’s lap. “I wish you were not being so kind.”

“Shut up,” Alex answered. She took a spoonful of soup and held it toAstra’s lips, trying to keep Astra’s shivering from causing her to spill any. “Eat this.”

Astra complied, and accepted the spoonful of soup. Alex watched her hold it in her mouth for a moment, assessing it, before swallowing with a little difficulty. “It is… not unpleasant.”

Alex managed to spoon a little more into her.Again, she held it for a moment, and then swallowed. After several minutes of this agonizing process, her shivering slowed a little.

“It is… cold in here,” Astra mumbled.She was looking as though she badly wanted to drift into unconsciousness.

It wasn’t that cold. She was just fucked up. “I can’t bring you a blanket,” Alex sighed. “You’re not allowed one.Suicide threat and all.”

Astra convulsed a little in a way that Alex guessed would have been sardonic laughter if she had been in better shape.Alex gently extricated herself from her position, and kneeling beside Astra, she took off her black field jacket.She laid it over Astra carefully.

“You need not…” but Astra lacked the strength to finish her sentence.

“Shut up,” Alex said again. “You don’t have the strength to argue with me right now.” Astra’s temperature should return to normal after a little while.Alex certainly couldn’t leave her with the field jacket, but there was nothing in the directives that stated she couldn’t leave it draped over her and sit here in the cell with her while she stabilized. She sat down cross legged next to her and breathed deep and slow, accepting that her strange course of action was the right one.

She thought of the Buddha’s discourse on love. She couldn’t remember all of it, but for some reason it had wormed its way up into her consciousness. So quietly, mostly to herself, she recited aloud the parts that she could:

_“…Whether visible or invisible,_

_Living nearby or far away,_

_Already born or not yet born--_

_May all beings be happy._

 

_Let no one deceive anyone else_

_Or despise anyone anywhere at all._

_Let none through anger or animosity_

_Wish each other harm._

 

_Just as a mother would protect_

_With her own life her child, her only child,_

_In the same way, for all sentient beings,_

_Cultivate a heart that knows no boundaries_

 

_And with love for all the world_

_Reaching above, below, and all around, without any barriers,_

_Freed from hatred and hostility,_

_Cultivate a heart that knows no boundaries._

 

_Whether standing or walking, seated, or lying down,_

_As long as wakefulness persists,_

_Develop this mindfulness._

_This is the sublime state here and now.”_

 

“Noble,” Astra mumbled. “I am glad that you survived.” And then she spoke no more after that.

Alex regarded Astra as her test. Was she capable even under these circumstances to show compassion? Could it conquer this problem more effectively than a contest of arms?

Susan Vasquez entered, and saw her sitting inside the cell.She looked quizzical.“Ma’am?”

Alex nodded in her direction. “Hi Vasquez. Can you tell Dawson to bump the heat in here like ten degrees? She’s shivering and her BP and temp are ridiculously low.”

Vasquez didn’t comment further on the strange tableau. “Yes, ma’am.” She lingered awkwardly for a moment. “We’re, uh, ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“Ready to move out.”


	35. Not Yet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ardith attempts a seduction that doesn't quite go to plan.

Jetta was the first to speak to Ardith after Ase bid her goodnight and walked off to sleep.

“Are you tolerating it well?”

Ardith glanced over at him. Frustrated, aroused, weary, and drunk, she frowned. “Tolerating what?”

“Having to give yourself to her like that.” She could hear the pain in his voice. This was not a conversation she wanted to have.

“Yes, tolerating it,” she answered around a slightly thick tongue.

“Are you sure there is no other way?” he pressed again.

“If you think of one, I’ll be glad to hear it,” she grunted. This was a lie, of course. She had hoped that Ase would drag her below and tear every stitch of clothing off her.

“If we do escape,” he began tentatively, “I would–”

“When we escape,” she corrected him.

“When we escape,” he amended, “after we get back to whatever is left of Haedwalle… I want you to consider becoming my wife.”

She chuckled. “These are not ideal circumstances under which to propose marriage, Jetta.”

But he was not in a laughing mood.He, too, was slightly drunk and feeling too earnest. “But Ardith…. long have I wished for that, and–”

“Jetta!” she cut him off. “By Freya, not now!”

A long, uncomfortable silence fell between them, filled with the Danes’ laughter and the creaking of the ship’s rigging.In a quiet, chastened tone, he finally spoke.“I only wished to give us something to look forward to… a reason to want this nightmare to end.”

“Our freedom is reason enough,” she answered, gentler this time. “We should not look too far ahead or we’ll be caught in worry, nor dwell too much on what has already happened, or we’ll be overwhelmed by despair.”

Wyne shifted closer to her, and without a word, rested his head on her shoulder. A moment later, Jetta did the same. This was family, she reminded herself. Even if Haedwalle was burned to the ground, these two were home for her. And they would need to find their way back, if only so that she could be reunited with Caja.

 

****

 

Ase woke up still mildly drunk. Her first thought was for Ardith as she ground sleep out of her eyes with the heel of her hand.

Her body flushed with heat for a moment as she remembered the previous night, holding the girl in her arms, dwelling in the fierce passion of their kisses. It felt fated; there was no denying that.

Back in Langadalr, before they had departed on this journey, she had gone to visit the _völva_ , Ormhild, a skinny, rawboned waif in her little hut in the hills at the outskirts. She had known the seer since childhood, but Ormhild had been Olief then, a scrawny boy who was much teased and tormented. When Olief discovered magic, it changed everything, and now Olief was Ormhild, wearing voluminous robes that hung from her lank frame, lips painted black, and speaking in hollow, breathy tones. After twenty years, Ase had almost forgotten about Olief entirely.

“It will come to grief,” Ormhild had told her.

“So I should not go?”

Ormhild dripped something from a small bottle into a jar over the small flame in front of her.The fire spat a little. “Ase, I have told you before, your story ends in sadness. Even if you do not go. You may as well take your place in legend for your troubles.”

Unsatisfied, Ase pressed her further. “But how? Will I be injured? Killed?”

Ormhild picked up a small bone from some mountain bird and stirred at the contents of the jar. “Killed? No. You will take a grievous wound to the heart, but you will not die.”

“Same as ever, then,” she responded with a grin. Ase was fearless. The wounds she took at Fjollum when she fought beside Njord should have killed her, and indeed they left her unable to bear children, but she did not die. And then she lost a hand at Skarvøld when she turned on Njord for his betrayal, and yet she lived, sporting an exquisitely crafted iron hand in its place, and was now jarl to show for it as well.Always, she paid her pound of flesh for every boon she received.

Her small shoulder wound still throbbed now as she hauled herself to her feet, clambering out from between the bodies of the deckhands piled side by side. It seemed a small price for so great a boon as Ardith.

She stalked out onto the deck and into the pale grey light of morning, finding Harald and a small group adjusting the yard and the pot of _skause_ still hanging over an almost-dead fire. Everything was more or less in order. She squinted out over the water and noted the darker head of cloud. It was distant now, but its position bore minding. 

Ingrid was standing in the middle of the deck, holding her sunstone to the sky for direction. On a morning this grey, it helped. She noted Ase’s approach.“Your little slave girl isn’t looking well,” she remarked. “You let her drink too much last night.”

“She is not a slave,” Ase answered sharply. “She is my woman now. Where is she?”

Ingrid rolled her eyes and pointed to where she sat with the lads near the barrel. She was not nearly so delicate as Bjorn with her opinion on the folly of this venture with Ardith.

Ase found a loaf of hard bread and strode over to them.They were leaning against one another, eyes closed and looking sickly.She knelt down, touching Ardith’s face first. “My star.”

Ardith opened her eyes.Ase broke off a chunk of the bread and proffered it. Ardith seemed to require a moment to understand what was happening, and then she took the bread, and took a cautious nibble of it. She held it in her mouth for a moment, before swallowing with a bit of labor.And then her dark eyes focused on Ase’s face, and she said, “And my friends?”

Ase nodded, gave her a gentle smile, and showed her the loaf. She had anticipated that Ardith would continue to advocate for them.She then broke the remainder in half and handed one to each of the lads. “When you can stand it,” she told them, “it will settle your stomachs.”

 

 

******

 

Ardith had drunk too much. Her head throbbed and all the sounds of ship life were entirely too loud.She smelled the stew from last night, still swinging in its pot above the brazier, which was also on chains to accommodate the movement of the sea. Her stomach lurched a bit. At last, she viscerally understood Jetta’s early objections to the motion of the ship on the waves.

“How much mead do you reckon you got them to kill last night?” Wyne croaked.

Ardith smirked, munching on the bread Ase had brought them. “More than I thought I would but not as much as I’d like.”

“A number,” Wyne pressed.

“Two and a half barrels.”

Wyne nodded. “Well, it’s something. But you mustn’t drink so much next time. I couldn’t believe you were even able to walk by the end of things.”

Ardith shrugged. “I thought she was going to want to take me to bed. I didn’t want to be sober for it.” This was, strictly speaking, true, but told only half the story. The other half was that she had very much wanted Ase to have her last night, to satisfy both the curiosity in her perpetually churning mind and the rather more urgent one between her legs. It was a desire she didn’t quite understand and certainly didn’t want, and that was why she had gotten drunk: because she wasn’t sure what she’d do if it was good, and she had every reason to fear that it would be.

Jetta finally had eaten enough bread that he felt well enough to speak. “So what next, then?”

Ardith considered. “Well, Ase no longer binds me. I’d like to have a look below deck and see if there’s anything down there that might help us. Hard to make a plan unless you know what you’ve got to work with.”

But, not being quite well enough yet to wander about the ship, she closed her eyes and rested her head against the barrel.

 

***

 

 

When Caja first came to her family, she was nine and spoke no English. Ardith spoke no Danish, but was, frustratingly, tasked with minding the girl. For weeks, without shared language, everything was a struggle; from eating, to sleeping, to brushing the little girl’s hair. But Ardith had learned quite a few words in that time, teaching Caja English as they went.Once Caja had accepted that she was staying with Ardith’s family, she became far more interested in learning English than in teaching Ardith Danish, and so Ardith’s Danish mostly went unused after that.

One day, after Caja had put up a particularly valiant battle, refusing to let Ardith brush her hair, and scratching at her if she tried, Ardith stormed from the cottage, trying to rein in her temper while Caja yelled what were clearly Danish curses at her.

“Fine, be a little animal, then!” she snapped as she stomped out.

“ _Du er ikke min mor!_ _Jeg kan ikke engang lide dig!”_ Caja continued to rant at Ardith’s back.

Ardith paced back and forth in front of the door, breathing in and out for a moment while a stream of angry Danish came pouring from the back of the cottage. After a few minutes, though, nothing more followed. Frowning, she’d walked inside and found Caja huddled in a ball in the corner, shaking and looking up warily at her. Ardith had understood at that moment: Caja was afraid. She had watched her father die in front of her and now she was here in a strange place, she was never going to be able to go home, and she had some teenage girl trying to make her do things she didn’t want to do.

Ardith drew closer to her, and knelt down, and didn’t say anything. She simply held out her hand and waited to see if Caja would take it.

After a few moments of looking at her suspiciously, Caja seized her hand and pulled her forward, muttering, “ _Hold mig, tak._ ” And she dragged Ardith forward, almost causing her to pitch into the dirt of the floor, and pulled Ardith’s arm around herself and nestled up against her chest. Not knowing quite what else to do, Ardith simply held her until she stopped shivering quite so much, and only then did Caja let Ardith brush her hair.

_Hold mig, tak._

_Hold me, please._

 

 

****

 

The day wore on and became afternoon and then early evening.Ardith was feeling less sick.She was sure she had napped for a bit, and when she awoke, she kept her eyes closed and listened.Something interesting was happening.She was fascinated to note that after several days on board with the Danes, she was finding that she was remembering a little more Danish that she had forgotten. She was starting to recognize more sounds; not whole sentences but at least a word here, a word there. It was something.

“How are you lads?” she inquired.

Jetta was still taciturn. “Better.”

Wyne gave her a wan smile. “Not ready for any more mead, yet.”

She winked at him. “Don’t worry. I’ll wait a bit. I’m only just getting my feet back.”

The ship was charging through the churning water, its red sail bright against a foreboding sky. She shivered at the brisk spray from the sea as the vessel sliced and dove through the waves, pulled along by a brisk wind. Ase was at the bow, talking with Ingrid.Ingrid had what looked like a cloudy stone in one hand and was gesturing with it as they talked.

The smell of the previous night’s stew still hung in the air. It looked like one of the men was adding some more of the potatoes and something else to bulk it up so they could continue to eat from it.Ardith marveled that they seemed intent upon cooking when the ship was moving so, but she supposed the swinging brazier and the swinging pot above it would both hold their contents so long as the seas didn’t get too much wilder. 

She decided now would be a good time to venture below deck.But Bjorn and Ingrid were still watching her carefully, so she needed Ase to accompany her.

She approached and slid her arm around Ase’s waist, listening carefully as they talked.

Mid-sentence, Ase paused to acknowledge her, kissing her forehead briefly and muttering, “ _Hej, min stjerne,_ ” before continuing. _Hello, my star._ That one, she recognized.

Ardith didn’t understand much of the rest.Something about the wind.She thought she heard the word “stop.” She couldn’t be sure. But it would get better, she thought, so long as she kept listening. When Ingridnoddedand walked away, Ardith tugged at Ase’s hand. “I want to see what you havedownbelow,” she said, pointing to the deck.

Ase gave her a bemused look.

Ardith sighed and took herto where the deck opened in order to let one into the space below where the plunder was all stacked. Ase nodded with understanding and smiled, saying something in Danish.“Under,” she said. She was pretty sure the Danish word was almost the same.

Ase nodded with understanding and smiled, commenting in Danish. 

Bjorn questioned her, but Ase was cheerful and waved him off.

Ase went ahead of her, and stood in the space, her head and shoulders sticking up out of the deck. Ardith sat down and released herself into Ase’s waiting hands, and let herself be gently lowered into the hold. The Dane was strong.

Ase hunkered down, and gestured around to show her the tightly wedged stacks of plunder: barrels and wooden chests full of who knew what, and burlap sacks and quite a number of odds and ends that were hard to make out in the dim. She seemed expectant. Clearly, she didn’t know what Ardith was after.

Ardith hunched down and glanced around, and began popping chests open and peeking at the contents: cloth, fine plates and cups clearly taken from churches, fine fabrics and charms of the Christian faith. Her eyes roamed the entire space. Ase opened a box and plucked out a silver chain with a single polished blue stone hanging on it.She showed it to Ardith.

Ardith smiled and shook her head. “Not what I’m looking for.”

Ase inched closer to her and placed it around her neck.

Ardith fingered the stone. “It’s beautiful, thank you. But I’m looking for spices.” She kissed Ase once and then rifled through a nearby box. Embroidered cloths, cups, other objects she couldn’t identify. “That stew of yours is barely edible.”

And then inthe dim, toward the stern of the boat, she saw them: a pair of small oars. Much smaller than the ones that were required to move this ship. They looked as though they belonged to the smaller long boats that she had heard of raiding in Wessex, the ones that slipped into the curvatures of bays and up rivers like slender seed pods.Those would be perfect, she thought. Just the right size for moving a barrel-raft.

“ _Hvad vil du have?_ ” Ase asked her.Ardith blinked at her.Her mind scrambled with the question for a moment.Ase was asking what she wanted.

She didn’t know the word for herbs, or if she had known it, it wasn’t coming to mind.Frowning, she gestured as though sprinkling something into a pot, and then stirring it.

Ase seemed unsure.Ardith set upon a small box that looked promising.Opening it, she did indeed find some herbs she recognized, and a few little tins of something that looked like spices. She didn’t know anything about Frankish spices but she opened one and sniffed it, and it smelledgood, so she claimed it.“Herbs,” she said, holding up the dried sprigs.“Spices.” She held up the little pots.

Ase grinned. “ _Madlavning,_ ” she said.

Ardith held the ingredients up.“These are _madlavning_?”

Ase shook her head.She mimed stirring again.“ _Madlavning._ ”

Cooking. Ase seemed pleased that Ardith was interested in that. Ardith tried to figure out the sentence.“ _Jeg er … madlavning?_ ” she ventured.

Ase chuckled, then came over, still hunched down in the low space, and kissed her once. _“Du siger … jeg laver mad.”_

“ _Jeg laver mad,_ ” Ardith repeated.Ase seemed truly pleased.Ardith wanted to make some quip about how they were both the same height under here, but she didn’t have the words. Seducing her would be so much easier in English.

The space was tight and difficult to kiss in when hunched over so.It was also packed with boxes, barrels, bolts of things, rolled-up rugs, and various indistinct piles of shadowed shapes.Ardith was conscious of the waterslapping against the outside of the ship and then the sound of her own breath which had become loud in the cramped space. The footsteps above were as if they were directly beside them.She tilted her head awkwardly and drew in Ase for another kiss.

 _Why_ ** _this_** _woman, of all women?_ , she wondered as she felt the now-familiar surge of desire in her body. _If it’s to be women for me, why not some sweet little fisherman’s girl with flowers in her hair?_

There was no answer. Her body simply shrugged and said, _it’s this one._ She dropped the herbs and spices where she stood and kissed her more urgently. 

She had one arm hanging around Ase’s neck and the other out behind herself trying to determine whether whatever was behind her was a suitable enough thing to recline on so that they could kiss without awkward neck contortions.It felt like a few sacks of something with a bit of give – grain, maybe?Good enough, she thought, and lowered herself onto it, pulling Ase with her. Ase made a small sound of delight, settling against her in the moderately less awkward position they now occupied.

When Ase had touched her in her drunken state the previous night, she was able to excuse her lusts with the mead. But now there was no mead to blame. There was only Ase’s weight, her warm mouth, and the muscled thigh that had worked itself between Ardith’s, coaxing her arousal into a craving that shamed her to admit. As she had been all along, Ase was gentle, restrained, aware of the effect she was having. Ardith had no choice but to face the bare fact that she wanted badly to know what came next.

She took a stab at the words in Danish, muttering them against Ase’s mouth:“ _Vil du have mig nu?_ ” _Will you have me now?_ Or at least, she hoped.

Ase paused.It was dim, but Ardith could see enough to tell Ase was looking at her.She shifted her weight to one elbow and with her good hand, tugged at the laces of Ardith’s breeches. Ardith’s sex clenched on itself in anticipation.Her breath caught. 

“ _Ja?_ ” Aseasked.

“ _Ja,_ ” Ardith replied.She wanted this woman to touch her. She didn’t care if it was wrong. She didn’t care who else she had killed or what else she had done. Ardith hated herself for it, but she craved Ase’s body like air.

After a moment of working at the laces, Ardith reached a hand down to help get them open because she was growing too anxious.She felt the leather relax around her hips and she tugged at them some more so that they lay open.Ase kissed her jaw, and asked again: _“Ja?”_

 _“Ja.”_ She wanted to be sure that Ardith wanted her. She needn’t have worried; Ardith was aching and needed relief that she knew could be found with Ase.

She stared down her torso and watched Ase’s hand slowly disappear into her breeches, and drew a sharp breath when her hand settled between her legs, applying soft pressure. She curled her hips up into the touch. She wanted more.She remembered how to say that: _“Jeg vil have mere.”_

Ase sighed blissfully and began rubbing her.

She couldn’t help it. She wanted to stop it but she couldn’t. She wanted to simply seduce Ase and not feel pleasure at their encounters. But by the gods, it was so sweet, the feeling she got with Ase’s hand cupping her whole sex and moving in slow, gentle circles. _I hate you,_ she thought desperately, wishing she could yank herself out of her own body, _and I’ll kill you._ But it didn’t matter.

She whimpered quietly, grinding herself against Ase’s hand in the half-dark, surrounded by piles of Frankish plunder, enjoying too much the sound of Ase rasping in her ear, _“God pige.”_   _Good girl._ It wasn’t fair that she felt this. The pressure building low in her belly demanded release and she was angry with her body for needing it. Hot shivers raced under her skin.

_It wasn’t supposed to be like this._

It was Ase who noticed first that Ardith’s tremors were accompanied by tears. Ardith was in too confused a state to notice at first that she was crying.

“ _Min stjerne,_ ” Ase murmured, stopping her touches.

Ardith noticed now just how terribly she was shaking. She had not gotten her release, nor would she. Not right now, at least. She was too angry with herself, too confused, to find her way to letting go. She couldn’t speak English, much less Danish.Hot tears were sliding down her cheeks.She was angry with herself for doing something so far opposite of seductive.

But Ase didn’t seem to mind. _“Du er ikke klar,”_ she said soothingly, _“ikke endnu.”_

Ardithcouldn’t work out those words – _ikke endnu_ still confounded her – but she remembered three words.The only three words she could summon in any language at the moment: _“Hold mig, tak.”_

_Hold me,please._

Ase obliged her, shifting to slide the arm with the iron hand underneath Ardith’s neck, throwing a leg over hers, and wrapping her other arm around Ardith’s waist. Ase’s muscled limbs felt good wrapped around her. Her voice was soft and low, and her hold was strangely reassuring, even if Ardith didn’t understand most of what she was saying. Ardith understood better now why Caja, when she was lost among a people she didn’t know and fighting tooth and nail against every little kindness, suddenly just needed to be held.

The thought filled her with bittersweet affection for her adopted sister, and also gratitude that Ase’s desire for her was leavened with something that seemed to pass for kindness.

A few minutes passed in which she lay in Ase’s arms.Ase did not simply allow Ardith to lay in her arms; she held her close, pressed their bodies together. Holding her was an action, rather than simply occupying a space.She felt the weight of the iron hand in the middle of her back. Ardith calmed down.

“I wonder,” she mused out loud, “how you lost your hand.”

At this moment, Ingrid’s voice came from above.She was calling for Ase.There was a bit of urgency to her tone. Ase grunted, called something back up to her in an irritated tone.Then she called Ardith “ _min stjerne,_ ” kissed her again, andgestured that they needed to go back above. Ardithhated to admit that she was sorry she couldn’t stay in Ase’s hold for a few moments longer.

Ardith laced her breeches up and recovered the spices and herbs from where they had fallen.Ase helped her back up top. The winds were still stiff but not whipping hard and the ship sliced the water like a snake.

Evening was moving in. Ardith looked for stars, but there were none to be seen.


	36. Two Generations of Inouye Women

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn more about the shared connection that Keiko represents.

 

Myoge stood gaping at Keiko for several moments before she shook her head quickly to clear it. “That’s not my name anymore,” she said, “but it’s good to see you.”

Keiko wondered at her with the same star-struck admiration that she had when they were back in school in Kamakura. “You’ve become a nun?”

Myoge nodded. “Yes. I’m part of a small order at a zendo in the mountains. I’ve taken the name Myoge.” She looked at her. Keiko was taller than she was now, but as well-dressed as she had ever been, in bright silks for Tanabata. “You’re looking well.” She remembered that they were still standing in an alley surrounded by a bunch of drunk, groaning ronin who were holding their heads and cursing. She gestured to Aguri. “We’d better go.”

Aguri nodded, but hesitated, looking at Keiko. “My little one,” she sighed,“it’s been so long…”

Keiko’s eyes were eager and shiny. “My mother told me you were dead but I didn’t believe it! I’ve been looking for you.”

Aguri gave her a pained smile. 

Myoge looked at her a little more urgently. “Don’t you think we’ve attracted enough attention?”

Keiko stamped her sandaled foot. “But I just found you! You can’t just leave me here.”

Myoge sighed. “Fine, you may walk with us, but we need to leave now.”

Keiko nodded once, and the three walked quickly down the little alley and out the other side, following Myoge through some trees and across a small field before banking back onto the high road.As they traveled, they talked quietly between them.

“Why did my mother tell me you were dead?” Keiko wanted to know.

“I’m sure she believed that I was.”

“Is that what you want everyone to believe?”

Aguri sighed. “Well, it’s the truth, in a sense.The person I used to be is gone.”

Keiko didn’t understand this. “So you have a different name now, just like Akane has a different name?”

“I will. But I don’t have it yet.”

Myoge chimed in.“Please, Keiko, call me Myoge.” In the midst of all these events, she was a little annoyed that of all things, they had run into someone who knew her from before and revealed her old name to Aguri. Myoge had supposed she would share it at some point, but would have liked to do so in her own time and in her own way.

“Sorry,” Keiko said hurriedly, “I don’t mean to offend, forgive me.” She acted as though Myoge were still her _senpai_.“I’m just surprised to find you as a nun, almost more surprised than to find my aunt as a nun. In school, we all thought you would marry well and live a very prosperous life. You were so good at everything! Calligraphy, reading, poetry, music, naginata…”

Myoge waved her hand. “I am still good at those things but they’re all part of my dharma practice now.”

“And how do youknow my aunt? Where have you been?”

Myoge shrugged. “We met by chance.” How could she begin to explain?

An awkward silence followed as they trudged through the grass toward the road. Keiko grumbled that it was poking through her socks. 

Aguri spoke. “Keiko, why were you here? And what were you doing with all that money?”

“I was looking for you,” the girl confessed. “I didn’t believe it when my mother told me you were dead.Who could best you, the great Aguri Inouye? So I took some of Madoka’s money and decided to look for you myself. I’ve been searching for a while now.”

Aguri gave out a long sigh. “Keiko, you can’t tell anyone you saw me. If they want to think I’m dead, you must let them.”

But Keiko was having none of it. “But they say terrible things!” she protested. “People say that you were once great but that you turned wicked. They say Uncle Noboru is a traitor, too.”

Aguri put up a hand to silence her.“I no longer care what they say.”

“But don’t you want to clear your name?”

Aguri sighed. Myoge watched her walk without speaking for a long while. She could see her considering how to explain things to her niece. “You must accept,” she said finally, “that much of what you’ve heard is probably true. Your Uncle was once a good man, but he became too hungry for power, and I had continued to serve him long after I should have.”

Keiko frowned. “But–”

“You’re old enough to understand now. Your Uncle Noboru’s father was Oda Nobunaga. After Nobunaga was assassinated at Honno-ji a few years ago, he had hoped that Toyotomi Hideyoshi would recognize him as Nobunaga’s son, but he didn’t. Your uncle became angry and started playing games, helping Hideyoshi’s enemies…”

Keiko was shocked. “Uncle Noboru was fighting for the Tokugawas?”

Aguri nodded. “Yes. Covertly. He hoped that since Hideyoshi refused to legitimize him, that perhaps Tokugawa Ieyasu would. But he was at the end of a very long line of spare Oda princes, and so he was never going to be in line for ascension. Nevertheless, when Tokugawa made his uneasy truce with Toyotomi, your uncle’s hopes were dashed. He became ever more bitter and ruthless. I could not serve him. He was hurting people who did not deserve it, simply because he was angry at not getting what he felt he should have.”

“You mean peasants?”

“Yes. And others.” 

“But a samurai’s vows are–”

“Yes, Keiko, but when vows conflict, sometimes, you have to make a choice.” She caught Myoge’s eye. “And serving your uncle was breaking my spirit. I had made a vow to Ugomori when I was very young, that I would always protect him and his family. When I was commanded to kill him for no good reason, my choice was clear.”

They stopped when they came to the road.Myoge put a hand onKeiko’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Keiko. I wish we had more time, but your aunt and I need to return to the zendo.” The truth was, they really shouldn’t have been there at all, and the roshi was probably not going to be too pleased with them.

Keiko wasn’t budging, though. “But you can’t!” She stared desperately at Aguri. “I just found you! You can’t disappear again!”

Aguri sighed and came to Keiko. It had been years since she’d seen her.She had been at her wedding to Madoka Nakajima, but that had been eight years ago. She had grown into a woman, full of the fiery heart that all the Inouye women had. “I am very proud of the woman you’ve grown into,” she said softly. “Now please, go home, Keiko. I have missed you terribly, but I can’t be part of that world anymore.”

“Let me come with you,” Keiko pleaded. “Please, let me just spend a little time. I can’t lose you again so quickly!”

Myoge shook her head. “We can’t. We’ve probably gotten ourselves into enough trouble as it is.”

Keiko pouted. “So you’re on her side, then.”

Myoge patted her on the shoulder. “I’m on everyone’s side,” she assured her. “I have a great love for everyone and for all things. It’s best for everyone if we go back now, and it’s not wise for you to come with us.” She glanced back toward the village.

“Return to your husband,” Aguri entreated her. “For your own safety as well as ours.”

Keiko frowned. “Will I ever see you again?”

Aguri smiled. “I don’t know. But I’m grateful that we’ve seen each other now.”

Keiko looked dejected. Myoge remembered that look; she had often seen it when she had to tell Keiko that no, she couldn’t come to have tea with her or help her study her poetry. She had never been able to hide her disappointment at not being able to spend time learning from her. “Fine,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone. But I wish you would let me come with you.”She turned and began walking away.

Aguri and Myoge stood together and watched her walk back to the village. Myoge could feel Aguri’s conflicted heart. “You miss your old life.”

Aguri sighed.“Not so much that. But she was the child I would never have. And it grieves me that she’s heard so much about my wickedness and failures.”

Myoge watched Keiko’s back disappearing down the road back into the village where the celebrations remained luminous. “You don’t like disappointing her.”

The rhythm of their exchange was slow as they watched Keiko walk away and each dwelt in their feelings about what had happened. “No.”

“I understand. I never did either.”

Aguri turned to her, seeming suspicious all of a sudden.“Explain how you know her.”

“We were schoolmates,” Myoge said. “She admired me, and I helped her when I could. She was sweet and good. I wanted to see her do well.”

Aguri’s mouth twisted with irony. “So you’re now _senpai_ to two generations of Inouye women.”

Myoge smiled. It was a sweet realization. She had been fond of Keiko. And despite all her expectations, she had become very fond of Aguri. There was something oddly right about it.

“But,” Aguri went on, “while I was happy to see her, it only reaffirmed what I have known for some time, which is that the life of Aguri Inouye is no longer a life that I wish to lead. I wish to live with kindness and love for all things, as you do.”

The bamboo leaves rustled in a low breeze. Myoge said nothing more until Keiko was out of sight.

 

****

 

“If you had asked me, I would have said it was a terrible idea,” Konjen Roshi said crossly.

Myoge decided the only way to deal with the trouble was to get out in front of it.So, although it was very early in the morning, she was now sitting in front ofhim, trying to remain implacable.

“That was why I didn’t ask you.”

He narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like it when she was funny when he was trying to scold her. “What did you hope to gain?”

“Bean cakes?” she suggested gamely. But he was stern, so she went on. “I wanted her to have one last taste of the world she means to leave. I wanted to make sure that she understood what she was doing and that she was ready to do it.”

He considered her for a long moment.He wasn’t often this unhappy with her. “Whether she is ready or not is not your decision, it’s mine.”

She bowed her head in deference. “Of course. I only intended to share with you what I observed.”

He drummed his fingers on his knee. “So, how many _ronin_ did you say she beat?”

“Five, armed with steel. But they were not very good. They were drunken idiots, trained most likely under Sensei Nobody atthe Nowhere School.” She debated whether to tell him that they had encountered Keiko.

The roshi grunted. “Still, a single woman with a staff against five _ronin_ is bound to make people talk.”He shook his head. “Was she recognized?”

Myoge groaned internally.“As it happened, roshi, the young woman being robbed happened to be her niece.”

The roshi regarded her for a few moments. “You might have thought to begin with that information.”

Myoge shrank. “I was getting to it.”

“Indeed.” She had not forgotten how penetrating his gaze could be. “So where was it left with her niece?”

Myoge shrugged.“She went back into the village. Aguri pressed her to agree to tell no-one what she saw.”

Konjen Roshi shook his head. “This was very foolish, Myoge. It’s one thing to take any old _kohai_ down to a festival in the village but this one is not any old _kohai_. It was reckless of you. I trust you to make good decisions. I would like it if you didn’t repeat this type of thing again.”

She nodded, shamefaced.

She couldn’t say what had come over her when she got the impulse to wander down the mountain. What she had told the roshi was in truth a reason she had concocted after the fact, which seemed plausible to her. And even now, she couldn’t say that she regretted it.The bean cakes, the lanterns, the poetry, and perhaps most of all, watching Aguri strike righteously at those who would do harm.She’d had the grace of a swan, the force of a hurricane, and the benevolence of a Buddha. The vision of it still hung in her heart now. It was worth a few stern looks from the roshi.

“Alright,” he said after a long moment in which neither of them spoke.“You’ve done well with her, Myoge. I only hope that this mistake doesn’t end up causing a lot of trouble. You may go.”

 

 

*****

 

 

Suzue came tapping on their door the next morning, sounding anxious.

“Myoge, there’s a young woman here, she says Aguri is her aunt.”

Myoge opened her eyes and groaned. The dawn had onlyjust begun to light the sky and she wasstill half-asleep. “Is her name Keiko?”

“Yes.”

Aguri but was already sitting up in bed, mouth twisted in frustration. “I might have known she would have pretended to listen and then followed us up here,” she grumbled.

“So intransigence is also an Inouye family trait,” Myoge grunted as she got up.

Aguri’s eyes narrowed, but she could hardly argue. 

They followedSuzue down to the common area where the monks were beginning to wander in for breakfast. Keiko was seated alone at the end of one of the long tables.

“Keiko,” Aguri exclaimed as they approached her. “What are you doing here? You agreed to go home!”

“No,I didn’t,” she rejoined, lifting her chin pridefully. “I agreed I would tell no-one and I haven’t. So I hid, and watched you, and followed you here.”

Myoge shook her head and sat down next to her.“But Keiko, why?”

“I told you, Akane, I just wanted more time with my aunt.And you’re here! After all these years, isn’t it right that I should want to spend time with my old _senpai_ , too?”

Myoge winced.“Please don’t use that name.”

Keiko frowned.“I’m sorry. I’m not used to your new one.” She looked at her aunt.“Please, let me stay. Just for a little while. I won’t cause any trouble, I promise.”

Myoge was struck by how much younger Keiko seemed, even though there were only four years between them.Yet her willingness to risk so much to leave home to search for her aunt, and to follow them up into the mountains not knowing if she would be able to find the zendo… it struck Myoge that the girl was indeed Aguri’s niece. Brave and stubborn, she thought, with a mix of affection and irritation.She glanced down and saw that she still wore the same sandals she’d worn in the village, but they taken some wear from her trip up the mountain, and her socks were dirty. 

And actually, as Myoge took in the entirety of the situation, Keiko in general appeared bedraggled, strands escaping from her neatly bound hair.She looked tired, and in need of some care. As if reading Myoge’s mind, Aguri said, “You need a bath, Keiko. And some rest, and fresh clothes.”

“So you’re not sending me on my way?” Keiko asked archly.

Myoge smiled. She recognized that archness, now. “No, not right now, in any case.”

Suzue continued lingering nearby. Finally, Myoge turned to her. She seemed regretful. “The roshi already knows she’s here and wants to see you.”

Myoge nodded, sighing heavily.

Keiko looked concerned. “Have I gotten you in trouble?”

“Probably,” Myoge responded wryly. She looked over at Aguri. “Wish me luck.”


	37. Conquerors, Liberators

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some are born to command. Alex Danvers has it thrust upon her.

Alex put her hand on Vasquez’s shoulder and a moment later, the klaxons in the belly of the DEO had silenced. Tension gripped her ribcage.“Alright,” she muttered, “let’s see who’s supposed to be in charge, here.” 

Vaquez’s fingers flew over the keypad and pulled up a screen. Alex gasped. It displayed her work headshot and name, in large, yellow block letters:ACTING DIRECTOR, ALEX DANVERS.

Vasquez turned around and gave her a little lopsided smile. “Looks like it’s you, ma’am.”

Alex released a long sigh.J’onn had shown faith in her from the very start, not just because of the time he’d spent with her father, but because he’d always seen within her the agent that she could become one day. And here was the evidence of that faith. She was in charge of this facility.

“I told you you were his favorite,” Vasquez whispered.

Alex scowled at her. “Shut up, Vasquez.”

Was she up to this job? He believed in her, so she had no choice. She had to be. He had trained her to be.Kara stood beside her. “So, Director Danvers?” her sister asked. “What’s next?”

Alex shookher head, and refocused her thoughts. “What’s next is, we find Hank. We also want to know what they thought they were after at Lord Tech. Vasquez, you’re my acting XO.”

Susan straightened up and nodded.“Yes, ma’am. Do we want to put a couple of guys on reviving those discarded alien weapons from Lord Tech? Maybe we can get a signal pattern off of them. Might be useful in finding their location.” 

Alex nodded. She was glad she had Vasquez in her corner.“Good idea.”She pointed to two agents who were lingering a few feet back. “Fogle, Chan, take Vance and Singh and get back over to Lord Tech. Surveillance only, at least for now. If Non’s team didn’t get what they wanted, they’re going to be back sooner or later. If you see hostiles, contact base immediately. Do not engage with Max Lord. He’s made it clear he’s not interested in cooperating with us, but I’m not about to let him stand in the way of stopping the Fort Rozz gambit and I’m sure as hell not letting him be the reason why we don’t find Henshaw.”

The two agents gave her snappy nods and jogged away.

She had to find him. She had to prove herself worthy of the faith he had placed in her. Not even to him, but to herself.

Kara touched her shoulder. “What about me?”

Alex sighed. “Do you think you can handle talking to Astra again?”

Kara nodded. “I think so.”Alex knew it was difficult for Kara to see her, both because of the complicated circumstances of their own relationship but also because of the fact that Astra bore the face of Kara’s dead mother.

Alex squeezed her sister’s hand. “I believe in you.” 

Kara nodded.“Thanks.”

The most important job now, Alex thought, was for her to keep her own mind and emotions well-governed. _It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell._

 

 

****

 

Eons ago, Kryptonians had had many gods. They worshipped deities that looked like themselves but also ones like animal spirits, and gods that took the form of winds and mountains and the great black sea.Rao, the sun god, had been among them, a deity in his own right evenin the pre-Raoite pantheon. Only with the rise of more advanced sciences did the older folk religions fall away, and all their powers eventually come to coalesce in the minds of the Kryptonian people in the person of Rao. The light of his intellect gave Krypton its destiny, or so the Raoite faith would come to believe.

Raoism itself was millennia old, at this point. Astra had never truly felt that his light shone upon her with the same benevolence that it did so many others. A part of her always resonated more with some of those other gods from the murky past; Vocc, the Builder. Flamebird, the Destroyer, created by Rao to burn down the world when it became too corrupt. Nightwing, the partner of Flamebird, who embodied restraint and compassion in the face of passions great enough to devour worlds. Those ancient, primal spirits always tugged at Astra’s gut.

But by the time Krypton collapsed, Raoism was baked into the culture, ossified into it.Whether one really felt that Rao’s position as the sole deity of their faith really came from the movements of the gods or just the changes in the attitudes of the society, one was expected to display at least a nominal practice of the faith.

But Astra had to admit that now, as she sat in extended periods of solitude, she found she was not praying to Rao.She simply ran over and over the structure of the hydrogen atom in her mind. It comforted her.She understood the appeal of a god that offered intellectual pursuit as a path to divinity.Astra simply chose, in her darkest hours, to skip the middle man of a deity who never deigned to touch her anyway, and contemplate perfection on its own merits. When she asked a hydrogen atom what its nature was, at least the answer was always consistent.

The exercise took her someplace deep in her mind to a state that was much like dreaming. Hydrogen was at the heart of everything in the universe. She wondered whether the hydrogen molecules in the water that filled her cells had been across the stars and back and how many other sentient beings they had been part of. Certainly within closed ecosystems like Krypton and Earth, the same building blocks must be used over and again. She considered the possibility that new beings and forms consistent with the rules of biological life were often recomposed from the same materials as that which came before.

Unique, and yet not.Not if one broke them down to small enough constituent parts.It seemedboth a blessing and a shame that those parts carried no memories of what had come before.

When she heard the doors open, she opened her eyes. For half a moment, she felt she was in a trance, and was unsure if she was seeing her niece or merely dreaming her.

“Rao isn’t going to help you,” Kara began coldly.

Astra felt the breath leave her as if she’d been punched. Why didn’t Kara understand? “I was not praying.”

Kara didn’t seem to know what to say to that for a moment. “Why was Non at Lord Technologies?What was he doing there?”

Astra shook her head.“Why do you choose the humans over your own blood?”

Kara was passionate, just like all the women of their house. Astra could see how it swelled in her chest, contained only by the icy mask she wore. “They raised me. They cared for me. This world is my home now. Would you have let anyone come and take Krypton from you?”

It was a fair question. Of course she wouldn’t. But Krypton was her only true home. Kara had two. She understood why the girl was conflicted, and perhaps a little confused. Astra, if she was being honest with herself, had not quite got a grip on her own feelings regarding her niece.From watching the local broadcasts, it seemed she was relatively new to heroism, which was why they had notfound each other sooner.“You have allowed them to keep you from showing your true self for too long. They have cowed you into pretending when you are superior in every way.”

Kara scoffed.“Not every way. And not all humans.”

Astra nodded. “What about the human agent. Danvers, is it?”

Kara squinted at her. “What about her?”

“She seems …important to you.”

Kara shrugged.

“Is she your lover?”

Kara snorted.

Astra nodded. “That is not done here, then.”

Kara shook her head.“It is. But we’re not lovers.”

“You are the last true heir to the House of El,” Astra sighed. She was tired. She hated fighting with her only living blood. Why couldKara not accept her place in Krypton’s history?“Your mother understood how important it was for you to survive.”

“Don’t bring my mother into this!” Kara spat. “You’ve already lost, Astra. The least you can do is act with honor and tell us where Non is holding Hank.”

“You mean the Martian?”

Kara froze. Astra saw the look of alarm in her eyes.“Yes, I know.Of course I know that your Hank Henshaw is a Martian. No human fights like he does, with the possible exception of your Agent Danvers.” Astra smiled faintly. She had thrown Kara off of her track.

But the sweetness of a small victory didn’t last. “Your mother believed me, you know. Before she sentenced me to Fort Rozz, she told me that she would fight formy cause. Try to get the eldersto listen to reason. In fact, little one, her belief in me is the only reason you standhere alive to judge me from the other side of this cell wall. Because she was prepared for the end when it came.”

Kara came and put her hand up on the plexi. Astra could see she had gotten to her, somewhere underneath that brave, noble front she was affecting. Astra placed her hand against the place where Kara’s rested, wishing she could take her in her arms the way she did when Kara was little, and promise her that everything was goingto be alright.

“Don’t you want to save them?”

“Yes, I do.” Kara’s look hardened again, her chin jutting forward in that determined way that Alura’s used to do. “Starting with Hank.Tell me where he is.”

Astra shook her head. “I cannot do that, little one. There is a plan in place. And you are on the wrong side of this war.”

Kara withdrew her hand and placed them on her hips. “Then we don’t have anything else to say to each other.I thought maybe, maybe, you had honor left after all. I guess I was wrong.”

Astra watched her niece stalk away. 

 

*****

 

It was the middle of Alex’s first night as acting director when the soldiers arrived. 

Alex had spent the previous twelve hours running the tactical sims for severalpossible outcomes, and occasionally pressing Astra to consider helping them.Astra was strong, though Alex suspected she was weaker than she seemed, and all that was needed was finding the vulnerability and she would commit to helping them.

Alex was now in the war room, reviewing the data Vasquez had gathered so far, when she heard their boots thudding down the corridor.She looked up in alarm.“Vasquez,” she said urgently, “go change the encryption on the locks on the holding cells.”

Vasquez frowned, but nodded and jogged away.

Alex secured her sidearm and walked to meet them as they entered.Six of them, in grey-green army fatigues, fully strapped for combat, armed with automatic rifles, pistols and knives, and led by a glowering older man with stars on his shoulder.She nodded in greeting. “General.”

The leader of the retinue looked at her and spoke. “General Samuel Lane, U.S. Army. We’re looking for the alien you apprehended earlier.”

Alex shrugged unhelpfully. “I’m sorry, sir, but you need to be more specific.”

“The Kryptonian,” he pressed, his patience clearly nearing its end before he’d even walked through the door.“The one connected to the attack on Lord Technologies that resulted in you losing track of your C.O.”

“Oh, her,” Alex said casually. “We’re holding her.But with all respect, sir, we’ve got the situation in hand.” She knew Lane’s reputation. He hated aliens and everyone knew it. She didn’t want him going anywhere near the holding cells.She didn’t want to get answers Samuel Lane style. The wall of screens behind her was silently scrolling feeds of GIDEON satellite data. She saw his eyes flick up to take that in before responding to her.

Lane grunted.“Well, I don’t agree.I’m taking command of this base until further notice. Who’s in command now?”

Alex met his gaze and held it calmly. “Well sir, I’m acting director while Director Henshaw is out of commission.I’m glad to have your assistance in resolving the situation.”

She saw his left eye twitch a little. “My assistance,” he growled, “means I do things my way.The president directly requested my involvement, Agent…?” He paused, realizing he didn’t know her name.

“Danvers, sir,” she finished. “Director… Danvers. And with all due respect, the DEO isn’t a branch of the US Army. We’ll solve this problem in consultation with one another.”She stood firm, because she knew that was what J’onn would expect of her.

Lane raised his finger and began to point it at her.“Listen,” he began, “I’m sure it’s real exciting for you, junior, getting to play director while your boss is away, but–”

A loud burst of static from the overhead speakers cuthim off.Alex glanced around and saw that the overhead screens were full of pixelated snow.Someone had taken control of the GIDEON satellite.She had a pretty good idea who.

After a moment the screen cleared. A pale, washed-out version of Non’s face appeared, smirking into the camera. Alex felt a wave of instant disgust. She let it pass. 

“You have our general,” he began without any introduction. “You will orchestrate her safe return.”

Before Lane could speak, Alex shot back, “Nice job, hacking our own satellites. You realize you just made it easier for us to find you, right?”

“Good luck.”He stared out at her for a moment. “As I said, you will return our general or we will make you wish you had.”

“We don’t negotiate with terrorists!” Lane barked.

Alex silently wished he wouldn’t say another word. “We need proof of life before we even discuss terms.”

Non moved back from the camera, and she watched it swing around. She saw J’onn, restrained, in a chair. He looked tired, but unharmed. He smiled wearily into the camera. “Congratulations on your promotion, Director Danvers.” 

“Thank you sir,” she responded wryly, “but it’ll be good to get you back on site.”

Non yanked the camera away and then once again, the screen was filled with his face. “That’s enough. You see he is alive and, for the time being, unharmed.We will make an exchange: your director for our general. It is reasonable, is it not?”

“Where?”Alex pressed. She mainly wanted to keep him talking. The longer she kept him talking, the more of his digital fingerprints might be left on the GIDEON network.

“Good try, but we are not playing that game now. And there seems to be some disagreement about who is in charge there and whether you will negotiate with us or not.”

Alex punted. “We need to determine if we’re authorized to make this exchange.”

“Be quick.” Non stared for a moment longer. “You have 48 hours or your man dies.”

The screen went black.

A moment of silence followed.Lane spoke first.“What in the name of high school football was that?” he demanded.

“The Kryptonian we hold is a general. That would be her lieutenant,” Alex explained.

“And exactly what progress have you made on finding the source of that transmission?”

“We’re … working on it,” Alex answered.

“Have you interrogated the general?”

“Of course.”

“And answers have not been forthcoming, I assume.”

“We’re making progress,” Alex hedged. “I believe we can get the answers we need.”

Lane grunted. “Well, now you’ve got a clock ticking. You’ve played director for long enough. Where are the holding cells?”

Alex stepped closer to him, continuing to gaze evenly and calmly into his face. “The locks are all encrypted, sir.”

“Maybe you didn’t understand me, junior, when I told you I was taking command of this base.”

“On whose authority?” she challenged. “You understand, I’m not in the habit of handing my base over to anyone who just shows up claiming to be in charge.”

“The president herself asked me to come in and take care of it. You can call her if you don’t believe me, though I don’t think she’ll be too pleased that you’re giving me a hard time.” He was smug enough when he said it that Alex believed him.

“With all due respect sir, I think I’d like to hear directly from her office, actually.Until then, the Kryptonian is my prisoner and you’re not going anywhere near her.”

 

*****

 

Alex sat at the desk in Hank’s office.Kara sat with her, rocking on the edge of her chair.The voice on the other end of the speaker phone was President Marsdin’s chief of staff, Nicole Fry.

“I’m sorry, Director Danvers, but we feel that we need General Lane to lead the operations with regard to Henshaw’s extraction.”

“Ma’am,” Alex objected, “I know this enemy, and I know my facility and my people. I stand a much better chance of accomplishing this extraction than General Lane, with all respect of course to his experience and military skill.”

Fry sighed. “That may be, but we’re concerned. This is an interplanetary threat on a larger scale than you may be accustomed to and the president feels more comfortable with an old soldier like Lane leading the charge.”

Alex silently mouthed a curse. “I understand that, but I’d prefer to work in _collaboration_ with the general, not under his authority.”

“Well,” Fry said after a moment, “the concern is that it would muddy the chain of command and we all know that costs lives in live combat situations.”

A long pause followed. Alex was running out of plays. “Ma’am… I’m going to be completelyhonest with you. Our rescue mission hinges on getting information from a prisoner that I believe can also be turned into an asset. And I’m concerned that the General’s …style… will prevent that fromhappening.”

“Why are you convinced of that?”

Alex bit her lip. “I just… I’ve spoken with her. She keeps talking about wanting to save Earth, not destroy it.”

“Well,” Fry sighed, “a lot of conquerors like to think of themselves as liberators.”

Alex knew she was right.“I understand that, ma’am. I’ve read plenty of military history too. But with the knowledge I have of her history, I feel that she could be convinced to see reason.”

Fry was silent for a moment, considering her words. Everyone knew what the man was about.“I understand your concerns. Director Danvers, for the time being, I am going to tell you that you need to allow General Lane to be in command of the base. That being said, I’m open to hearing from you if you find that things aren’t working. But you’d better have an ironclad case and you better be prepared to defend it to the president. All I can do for you is advocate for you to not be fired. Are we clear?”

Alex sighed. It was the best she was going to do. “Yes. Thank you, ma’am.”

The comm beeped. It was Vasquez.“Yeah Vasquez, what’s going on?”

“Lane is ordering me to open up Astra’s cell. Should I?” She sounded nervous.

Alex sworeunder her breath. “Yeah, unfortunately, he’s in command here. Go ahead and open it.We’ll be right there.”

Kara was already on her feet and halfway out the door.Alex was right behind her.


	38. The Wolf You've Been Given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sea storm overtakes the Nagelfar.

Ardith added the spices and herbs to the stew, and stirred them in.After letting it sit for a while, she tasted it. It was better.She added some ale, and salt (it was easy to find - another word that was nearly the same).An hour later, the smell of it simmering filled the air.One hungry Dane after another wandered over, wanting to taste what she had done to the _skause_.Ase tasted it, and closed her eyes for a moment, looking blissful.When she sampled her own work, Ardith had to agree, it was actually quite improved.

She reflected on what had happened below deck. She still wanted to escape, she still wanted to avenge her father, and seducing Ase seemed a reasonable step in accomplishing these things.She simply struggled with the fact that Ase made her body feel things it hadn’t until now. 

And Ase was gentle, careful with her touches. Ardith didn’t know what to make of the fact that the moment Ase had noticed that something was wrong, she stopped immediately and simply held her.Or that Ase seemed to love telling her that she was a good girl, or that Ardith felt the muscles in herthighs tremble when Ase said it.

It scared her. It made her angry with herself. Would she be able to do what needed to be done when her opportunity came?

 

*****

 

 

“So,” Bjorn remarked, shoveling the _skause_ into his mouth, “she cooks, she fights. What more could you ask for, eh?”

Ase nodded, gazing at Ardith serving the crew as night descended. “I cannot wait until her Danish is better.”

“Are you sure about that?” Bjorn asked, smirking. “Once she understands you, she might not like what you have to say.”

Ase grinned.

Harald wentoverto the pot.Ase watched him carefully. Ardith kept her eyes on him –wise girl– as she served him a bowl. Then she held up a finger, indicating for him to wait, and she took a cup and drew him some mead from the nearestbarrel. She passed it to him, smiling. He paused, as if surprised by this gesture, and then lifted it in her direction, mumbled, “ _Skøl,_ ” andwandered away, sniffing at the contents of his bowl.

“You know she is going to want you to keep her friends. You gave in, back at Helder, when Harald and Ingrid tried to sell them,” Bjorn pointed out after a moment.

Ase sighed. “I know.”

“You realize of course that you can’t do that. If they’re gifts for the king, it’s one thing. But to lose half our crew so that you could keep three slaves for yourself? The crew won’t like it, no matter how good your speech was the other night.”

He was right of course.

“And … I am keepingmy eye onHarald,” he finished.

“Harald does not worry me. He spoils for mutiny, and then I stab him, and then he remembers he’s an idiot and it’s done.”

Bjorn gave her a half-hearted chuckle. “Still, I think some doubts remain. We should be careful who we turn our backs on.”

Ase nodded, continuing to watch Ardith cook and serve the crew. How fine a life they would have together, she thought. “And what about you, Bjorn? What do you thinkabout all of it?”

He shrugged. “Not every raid is a success. The Saxons werebetter prepared for us than we expected. Ragnar Lothbrok was not able to sack Paris, they say, and lost half his men too. As for the girl? Well, it appears you are winning her heart. But… take care with her. It was only days ago that she was trying to sink her steel into your chest.”

“So you counsel caution.” She smiled fondly.

“Who will, ifI don’t?” he asked, grinning back at her.“Sometimes you even listen.”

“The storm worries me,” she remarked, looking up at the darkening sky.“It looks bad. Almost makes me wish your wife still did magic.”

Bjorn smiled. “You know you can’t even ask. Besides, _seidr_ is not for changing the weather. It’s for changing fates.”

Ase looked out over the sea.“Bjorn, what really happened? Why won’t she use it anymore?”

Bjorn sighed. “Her sister loved a man who did not love her back. She begged Hilde to use magic to bring them together.” He paused. “It worked. They both were killed in a flood. They died together.”

Ase winced.No wonder she didn’t want anything to do with it.

“It’s worse than that,” Bjorn went on.“Skuld spoke to her.” Skuld was the norn whose province was that which had not yet come to pass. She rarely spoke to anyone. “Hilde wound their threads so that they could never be separated, not even in Hel, not even if their _hugr_ survived to be reborn on earth. She has bound her sister for all time to a man who does not love her.”

Ase was quiet as she considered this fate. _For every boon, a pound of flesh._

 

****

 

That night, Ardith slept beside Ase on her bedroll near the stern of the ship. She lay staring atthe moving vault of rippled cloud above them, with Ase’s warm body curled around her.It was far and away more comfortable than sleeping propped against the capstan. 

The sail was full and the ship was moving briskly. Since no rowing was required at the moment, most of the torches were out, and many of the crew were asleep near their oars, as rest could be hard to come by at sea.Ardith half-wondered if she and Ase could discreetly make love right there, while the others were asleep or occupied with sailing, but Ase made no move to do it, and Ardith wished for more privacy than that anyway. 

So she fell asleep, lulled there by the warm narcotic of Ase’s embrace.

In her dream, she found herself curled up with a wolf.It was the same wolf from her previous dream, the one with the knowing yellow eyes that seemed luminous in the empty darkness. She looked down, and saw that she was a great cat, her paws resting in the wolf’s soft, grey fur.She gasped. “How can this be?” she whispered to herself.

A fox sauntered out of the dark and came up to where she lay with the wolf.It regarded her for a minute, sniffing at her. “What’s the matter?” it asked. “Aren’t you comfortable?” 

“Too comfortable,” Ardith grumbled. “A cat has no business lying down with a wolf.”

The fox chuckled. “Well, that’s what you think, and yet here you are.”

Ardith bared her teeth at the fox.

“Don’t be angry with me for saying what’s true,” it sniffed.

“I don’t want this wolf,” she complained.

The wolf looked hurt.

“See what you’ve done?” the fox demanded. “You break the wolf’s heart to speak this way.”

“But I’m a cat!” Ardith protested. She held up a sleek, grey-furred paw.“See?”

“Mm,” the fox agreed. “But you’re no soft little house cat, are you? And you wouldn’t be happy with a soft little house cat, either.You’d only hurt it.You’re one of the great cats that pulls Freya’s chariot. You’d crush a soft little house cat.”

Ardith mewled, objecting to the fox’s words. The world suddenly felt like it was tossing and rolling.

“You know I’m right,” the fox wenton. “You’ve never wanted a soft little house cat. You’ve wanted adventure. You’ve wanted battles. You’ve wanted to roam and see the world. You’ve wanted a _wolf_.” 

“Fine,” Ardith huffed, her tail switching crossly, “but why does it have to be _this_ wolf?”

The fox looked reproachful. “This is the wolf you’ve been given. Stop being so ungrateful.”

 

*******

 

The first thought Ardith had when she awoke was that the fox’s words were like a splash of cold water. 

However, she understood quickly that what had woken her was actually a splash of cold water.She sat up.

Ardith jumped to her feet when she understood that the world was indeed pitching and rolling. The sea had become rough while she slept, and the deck was alive with activity.Winds whipped and a giant cracking sound came from the sky.She could see no stars above, only a black expanse with sheets of rain hurtling down from it.She saw Ase already on her feet, barking out orders, and ran to her, not knowing what to do but grab her arm.

Ase looked at her. 

“Thor swings his hammer very hard tonight!” Ardith cried above the hubbub.

Ase recognized Thor’s name and nodded. She said something in Danish that Ardith couldn’t understand, then took her by the arm and pulled her along toward one of the lines that seemed to be meant for adjusting the sail.Ase took up the rope, wound it once around her iron hand and then gripped it with the other.She motioned with her chin for ardith to do the same, so she positioned herself in front of Ase and grabbed onto the thick, rough line.She glanced around, and saw that there were four more lines, with four or five men each on them. 

Ardith listened to Ase’s voice, which carried above the din of the wind and water, and leaned back against her.She knew she was going to have to go by feel to understand what was being asked of her.Did it really take twenty people to adjust the large sail?

She turned around and faced Ase.“ _Mine venner!_ ” she cried.“My friends, Wyne and Jetta!They can help!”

Ase frowned, then nodded.She barked out an order to someone and they jogged away and returned a moment later with the two lads, who looked dazed and out of sorts. Jetta in particular shot her a curious glance, seeing her standing close with Ase, holding a line.The ship rose and fell and swayed violently.He peered at her.“What do they want with us?”

“Grab the line!” she shouted. “I think we’re meant to adjust the sail!”

The ship lurched and then dove, and a wave sprayed over its side and dashed across the deck.Wyne and Jetta shook the water off their faces and then moved in front of Ardith and grabbed hold of the rope.

Brida was atop the lookout, shouting things back which were being conveyed down the ship by crew that dotted the length of the deck.Ingrid was behind them, gripping the large arm of the steering oar and flinging her full weight against it it. 

Ase called out something unintelligible, and she felt Ase press against her back, and she moved forward a little.“Step forward!” she called to Wyne and Jetta. 

The ship rose and tossed again, and another wave broke across the deck. 

She heard Ase count off, and then call out again, and felt her move forward another step. 

“Forward!” she called to her friends.And they stepped with the crew. 

By the third step, they understood when to respond to Ase’s call. 

Ardith could barely see through the rain, but with each step, the crew was moving together and lowering the sail. She could feel the cold spray from the sea and the solid warmth of Ase at her back, and the pull of the sail against the rope she held.She thrilled a little at the notion that she was taking part in taming so great a beast as this magnificent ship.She felt its bones twist beneath her feet and with each step forward, the sail inched lower and held less wind, and the ship’s tossing against the water became less violent. 

For next several minutes, Ardith was aware of nothing ahead of her, and nothing behind her. She dwelled not in the future, and not in the past, but simply clung to the rope and moved when she was called to move, and shivered in the wet and chill, and tasted the salt in the air.

The damned fox was right. She had wanted adventure. She was getting it. It just hadn’t taken the form she’d expected. 

The yard sat low against the mast now and the crew tied the lines in place.Ardith watched as best she could.Tying a proper knot was a skill she was going to need if they were going to get away. 

Having the sail lowered meant that they would be a bit more stable, but the struggle was far from over.Cold sea water sloshed around her ankles and someone handed her and her friends buckets with which to begin bailing.The crew took oars and began rowing.To where, Ardith couldn’t see; it was nothing but blackness, but Ingrid and Ase seemed to know where they needed to go. 

She could see some chaos at the front of the ship, but couldn’t make out what it was.She simply pitched in and did her best to continue bailing water. 

She saw Ase and Ingrid pulling together at the steering oar and was somewhat aware of feeling the ship’s direction change.Ase seemed dismayed with something, and she grabbed a line, wrapped it twice around her iron hand, and fastened the other end to the arm of the steering oar.She shouted something at Ingrid and then stood up on the bow of the boat, leaning with all her might over the ocean.Her positioning was precarious.Ardith wondered how she could keep her balance. 

Ingrid continued to push at the oar, and Ardith felt the ship begin to bank. She wondered where they were going.She hoped it was out of this storm. 

Ingrid stood up then.Ardith saw her begin walking toward Ase. In the dark, Ingrid’s face was unreadable, but a flash of lightning came, and illuminated a mask of pure hate. _She’s going to push her into the water,_ Ardith thought suddenly, and she froze. Wyne looked betweenher and the tableau at the edge of the ship. Clearly, he saw the same thing. 

Ardith panicked.She told herself it was because she wanted to kill Ase herself, not watch her get pushed into the ocean by a disgruntled member of her crew.This was not how she wanted it to go. 

And what would happen to them on this ship without Ase to protect them? Ardith’s mind ran through the possibilities and they weren’t pretty: raped, killed, sold.She sloshed through the water and past Ingrid, reaching out her hand to Ase to pull her back in. After an awkward beat, Ingrid came up on the other side and took Ase’s wrist and drew her back over the bow and onto the deck. 

 

*****

 

And so the Nagelfar beat her way through the cold black rain until Brida called from the lookout that she could make out land. 

The rain had slowed, but Ase’s mood was still as black as the sky.The Nagelfar was within a stone’s throw of an island that was mostly shrouded in shadow.She wasn’t sure it would do them any good, and they wouldn’t be able to fully assess the ship until daybreak.Everything was soaked, and though they were no longer taking water, they had already taken more than enough. 

Hilde drew near Ase as the ship listed in the water off the shore. “I don’t like it,” she said quietly.

“What don’t you like?” Ase demanded. “It’s land. We can pitch camp while we make repairs.”

“There’s magic here,” Hilde answered. 

Ase’s stomach clenched. Hilde would know, after all. “We won’t stay long,” she promised.“We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

Hilde shrugged. “It’s not me you have to bargain with.”

Ase tried to take an optimistic view. “Well, Thor brought us here, so there must be a reason. We’ll just be careful.” 

But she knew. If Hilde felt the presence of magic, there was only one kind it could be.


	39. A Hundred Whistling Swans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myoge's past catches up with her. So do her feelings.

 

“So here we are again,” the roshi sighed. He didn’t seem angry, strangely. Just tired. 

Myoge nodded and waited for him to speak. 

“So her niece followed you back through the mountains, and now she is here. How likely do you suppose it is that she was followed?”

Myoge thought about this.She hadn’t been aware of anyone following them, but Keiko had. Who knew whether someone had followed her?“I don’t know. We surely attracted more attention than I would have liked.”

“Well.” A long silence followed.He considered herfor a long time before speaking. “We haveallowed her shelter here for a long time, now. Do you believe she’s ready to take her vows?” 

Myoge nodded. She had watched Aguri over the last few months slowly dismantle the walls of her pride and seek after goodness. She had seen her find moments of zen. She shone so brightly now that at times it was she no longer felt it absurd to call her the hand of the sun. But she kept these thoughts to herself, and simply said, “Yes, I think so.”

“Then there will be no more waiting. Leave here and begin preparations immediately.”

Myoge rose, bowed, and started toward the door.She stopped and turned back.“Roshi, would you permit her niece to stay for her vows? She is the daughter Aguri never had and I know that it would mean a great dealto both of them if she were allowed to be present.”

He grunted. “Yes, of course, the girl. Fine. But she must depart afterward.”

She nodded. “Do you expect trouble, Roshi?”

He waved a hand.“Who can say? It is wise to prepare for it though.”

 

*******

 

Keiko was pleading with Aguri. “You must come back,” she implored.

Aguri shook her head and continued to sweep the floor of the hallway that led to the women’s rooms. “There is nothing left for me there.”

Keiko looked hurt. “What about me?”

Aguri’s heart ached. She stopped sweeping and took her by the shoulders. “I have been studying for some time now to take my vows and become a nun. Myoge has been teaching me.”

“She teaches you?” Keiko laughed. “I assumed it was the other way around!”

“Yes. And I think you know, she is a very good teacher.”

Keiko nodded. “So you really want to give up life at court and being a general and having fine things, just to stay here and sweep floors and clip flower beds?”

Aguri laughed. “You would hardly believe the joy I sometimes find in those things.” She resumed her sweeping. “And I have not had to give up being a warrior. This is a martial order. We train. The older monks and nuns are some of the best fighters that I have ever seen. And the Roshi is rumored to be even better, though I have never fought him myself.”

Keiko peered at her curiously.“Do you go into battle, then?”

“We have not, in the time I’ve been here. I’m told it has happened from time to time, when we were needed.”

“Hm,” was all Keiko said.

At this moment, Myoge came down the corridor toward them. She was moving quickly and with purpose. “Aguri,” she called, and picked up her pace.

Aguri leaned thebroom against the wall. “What is it?”

“The roshi has decided that if you are going to take your vows, you must do so.No more waiting. I’m to begin preparing you.”

Keiko shifted her feet and glanced between them. “Is it because of me?”

Myoge shrugged. “Maybe in small part. But it really is time, nevertheless.”

Keiko lowered her head. “It grieves me that you would not return to clear your name.”

Aguri sighed. She came and embraced her niece. “Keiko, listen to me. Your uncle is a very wicked man. I could no longer keep my vows to him and live with myself.When he commanded me to kill someone that I had sworn to protect, I had to choose.What vows do I keep? What vows do I break? So I chose to break my word to the man who was wicked, and keep my word to the man who had shown me kindness when even your own mother would not. But of course, I was still a samurai who had broken her word to her master. So you see what a predicament I found myself in. I offered my life up to protect the man that he had asked me to kill, but I did not die as I had expected I would. I was only badly wounded. I stumbled into the forest as an honorless _ronin_ , and it was Myoge who found me, nursed me back to health, and showed me what peace felt like. Taking these vows means I have a way to keep my honor intact. I would not squander this chance.”

Keiko squeezed her and withdrew from her. “Don’t you think you could have convinced Uncle Noboru to stop doing terrible things?”

Aguri shook her head. “He unraveled completely after Hideyoshi refused to legitimize him, but his greed and ambition were trouble long before that. He created conspiracies and saw traitors everywhere, using them as excuses to seize lands that weren’t his, even as far as Sogu and Shimosen.”

“Shimosen?” Keiko glanced at Myoge. “Isn’t that where you’re from?”

Myoge nodded.She turned to Aguri. “I’m sorry that you are pressed to do this now, but we must begin preparing you.” She looked at Keiko. “I have arranged with the roshi for you to be allowed to stay for when she takes her vows, but then you will need to leave afterwards.”

“Maybe I should leave Madoka and become a nun too,” Keiko said wryly, “then you’ll finally stop trying to get rid of me.”

Myoge shook her head, laughing. “It’s very good to see you, Keiko, but it wasn’t safe for you to come here, and you really shouldn’t stay longer than necessary.”

“Besides, wouldn’t you miss him?” Aguri added.

Keiko snorted. “Auntie, he may be handsome and from a wealthy family, but he’s not very smart. His poetry is terrible. And he’s still tangled up in his mother’s apron strings. Of course one should respect their elders, but he really does everything she says. He isn’t his own man at all.”

Aguri smiled. “I don’t think you’d have much fun here, Keiko.”

“Doing things your own way again, Myoge?” came a voice.

Senkō had come around the corner. Who could say how long she had been listening? Aguri wasn’t happy to see her. “Senkō, this is my niece, Keiko.”

Senkō bowed politely to Keiko and then looked at Myoge and Aguri. “So, will the rest of your family be joining us?” The implication was clear. It was not normal to have one’s vows attended by anyone outside the zendo.

“No,” Keiko responded. “I’m the only one stubborn enough to follow her all the way here.” Keiko was a smart young woman.She looked at Senkō. “Have you taken your vows yet?”

Senko nodded.“Yes. Five years ago. I have been wondering when your aunt would do the same.”

Myoge seemed anxious to end their conversation with the younger nun. “Well, no you no longer need to wonder.” 

Senkō looked between them. “Just so. You are fortunate, Aguri, that you have been given every advantage since Myoge carried you here on her back.”

Myoge looked sidelong at her. “I stopped carrying her that day. Why are you still carrying her now?”

Senkō bristled. “I walked here all the way from Fukuyama to join. No-one carried me.”

Aguri only smiled at the young nun. “You should be grateful that you never needed to be carried, Senkō. As I am grateful that Myoge was there to carry me when I did.”

Senkō shut her mouth.

Myoge smiled. “Isn’t it your turn at the laundry, Senkō?” she inquired.

Senkō narrowed her eyes at them and then bowed stiffly and walked away.

“What’s wrong with her?” Keiko asked softly.

Myoge smiled at her and then at Aguri. “She’s still learning.”

Aguri looked at Myoge.“What do I do now?”

“You should go and see the roshi. He will want a word.”

 

*****

 

While Aguri was gone, Myoge took Keiko on a little tour of the grounds.

“It’s very beautiful here,” Keiko remarked as they walked through the gardens. “Very peaceful.”

Myoge nodded. “It has been good for me. And for your aunt as well.”

Keiko giggled. “It amuses me to no end that you are her teacher and not the other way around.”

Myoge smiled. “Yes, we both took a moment to enjoy that.Of course, there are ways in which she can teach me, too. But where Zen is concerned, I am the teacher.” She looked at Keiko. “So tell me, did you learn well after I left?”

Keiko nodded. “Yes. But I did miss you. I’m excellent at managing money, at poetry and incense appreciation, and flower arranging and tea ceremony, and I can hold an excellent conversation.It’s too bad Madoka has nothing interesting to say.”

Myoge was entertained by the sharp edge to her sweetness. She had not had that when they had been young girls. “And what about your naginata? Have you continued to practice?”

Keiko looked mildly offended. “Of course! What kind of wife would I be if I couldn’t defend my home when my husband wasn’t around?”

Myoge smiled.“Come, let me show you the training yard.”

They walked around the back of the dormitories, listening to the distant clacking of wooden weapons strikingone another.

“Why did you disappear?” Keiko asked after a few moments of quiet.

So Myoge sighed. She explained the story of her father being killed, and of her grief and vengeance, and of being so torn up inside that she sought zendo after zendo until she found this one.

Keiko grieved for her. “I wish I had known.”

Myoge sighed. “It was not your burden to bear.”

They walked one behind the other through the narrow footpath between the hattō and along the path that led past the dormitories, up to the tower that housed the great obon sho bell. “We ring this on holidays, and for the call to prayer at special times.”

Keiko gazed up into it admiringly, noting the little details across its thick, bronze surface. She frowned. “But how do you ring it?”

Myoge smiled, and led her up some small steps to the second level, where the heavy wood and bronze rig that suspended the bell creaked and groaned faintly at their presence. She pointed to a long, thick hammer that hung from a rope beside the bell. “We take that, draw it back, and swing it against the outside of the bell.”

Keiko seized it and drew back with all her might.“Like this?”

Myoge panicked and dove for the hammer, but Keiko just laughed. “Come now, Myoge, I wouldn’t embarrass you that way.”

Myoge shook her head and carefully lowered the hammer back to resting position.

They came upon the yard, and watched for several moments as a group of nuns sparred with bo staffs, two on two.Most of them were a little younger than Myoge, and were being trained by Suzue.Keiko observed for a few minutes before asking, “Might I try?”

Myoge chuckled. “Don’t you think you’ve gotten into enough trouble today, Keiko?”

But Keiko was dogged, eager to show Myoge how she had grown her skills in the ten years since they’d seen each other.Myoge relented, got them a pair of naginata, and they found a corner of the yard.Keiko’s technique was good; she was quick on her feet, had a strong thrust, and good wrist movement. She let her guard down too often on her left side, and Myoge gave her a few suggestions on how to avoid that, but Myoge couldn’t help feeling proud that her former kohai had grown up so well.“Well done, little sister,” she said, when it was clear that Keiko was growing winded. 

Keiko beamed. “I’m glad to have found you again.”

 

******

 

Aguri sat before the roshi.He gazed at her a long time without speaking.

“So, you will be taking your vows tomorrow,” he said finally.

Aguri nodded. “It seems so.”

“Are you prepared to commit yourself fully to this life?”

“Yes. Myoge has shownme the meaning of Zen, and has given me a great example of what it means to live a life based on giving.”

The roshi raised an eyebrow at this, but continued. “And is there any hesitation left in your heart? Any reason why you would not commit yourself? Anything that keeps hold of you? Your niece for example?”

Aguri shook her head. “I love her, and she means a great deal to me. But the life she is part of holds no pull for me anymore.”

“Then the next thing I need you to do is spar with Myoge. I would like to observe. I imagine your arm is healed enough at last that you may use your right hand if you wish?”

Aguri had gotten used to sparring left-handed, and even when she had used her staff in the village, she had favored the right side and done most of the work with her left, because she was accustomed to it. “I think so, Roshi.”

“Good.” He got to his feet. “Let’s go and find her, then.”

 

***

 

 

Myoge had just finished with Keiko when she saw the roshi approaching with Aguri.

She bowed to both of them, as did Keiko. 

Clouds moved in, thick and grey, and the roshi gestured to Myoge. “I wish to see you andyour _kohai_ spar.”

She nodded. “Of course. I’ll get the _shinai_.”

“No.” He reached to his waist, where two katana were sheathed, one on each side. “You will use steel.”

Myoge bowed once and approached. It was not uncommon for the roshi to demand to see someone spar with steel on the eve of their vows. Still, she had not been expecting it. She took the katana from him and watched as Aguri didthe same.

The practice of sparring with steel was different than with shinai; there was far less room for mistakes. It spoke ill of your skill if you wounded your opponent.

Aguri understood all this, of course. Myoge walked across the yard and took her place, feet planted, hands curled around her weapon. Aguri, she noticed, was favoring her right hand. She smiled. Aguri smiled back. It was understood. It was finally to be a fair fight.

Aguri bowed to her, to her niece and the roshi, and to those assembled in the yard, who had gathered to observe them. The sky spat raindrops as they approached one another.

Aguri did not bother with her muscular approach. She knew Myoge had no fear of her. They knew each other’s moves so well by now that there was no point to the usual tactics of intimidation.She simply came in fast, steel bared, and Myoge met her with steel, and they began.

It felt good to strike steel against steel, to hear the ringing, and to see Aguri’s face lit with the pleasure of it.She was quick with her right hand, and Myoge had to adjust. She had always struggled against Aguri even when she led with her left hand. She moved lightly, leapt in, danced out, made Aguri chase her. Their blows would come in a quick flurry and then,when Aguri became too quick, Myoge would dance away again, and Aguri would chase her. Her heart raced. A light sweat broke on her forehead. This, finally, was Aguri in her truly perfect form.

Aguri lunged in, her blade whistling so close past her cheek that Myoge had to resist the temptation to turn her head to look at it. But she felt no fear, because she trusted in her bones that Aguri would not harm her. She intended to dance away but Aguri stepped forward, planting a foot over hers and preventingher retreat.

So they fought closely for a moment, arms tight to their bodies and blades near their chests, so close they could almost feel each other’s labored breaths on their faces.They stood with steel locked together until Myoge dislodged her foot and danced backward, working to anticipate the whirling of Aguri’s blade this way and that. Aguri was fearless, not the least bit hesitant in her blows, because she knew that Myoge was good enough to keep pace with her.

Such a curious closeness Myoge felt with her just now! Such trust, such exhilaration and joy!

She knelt down and came in low, but Aguri leapt over her and landed graceful as a crane behind her, spinning to bring her blade down toward Myoge’s shoulder.But Myoge was quick, and still low in the dirt, she too spun around, and raised her katana to block.

They held this way for half a moment, grinning at one another. Myoge’s heart sped in her chest. All her limbs tingled.She swatted Aguri’s blade away and sprang to her feet and to the side, just out of Aguri’s reach.Reorienting herself, they faced each other again.

“I have learned much,” Aguri panted, darting toward her with blade extended. 

“It’s what you’ve always known being made manifest,” Myoge answered through fast, hard breaths.The ringing of theirsteel continued for several moments more as they whirled together, nearly faster than the eyes of those observing could follow.The rain was coming heavier now, and Myoge’s robes were growing damp and starting to cling to her.

Aguri’s hair stuck in wet strands to her face as they continued to make the music of battle together. _Her hair,_ Myoge thought briefly, and felt sorry that it would have to go.

And in that brief moment, her movement slowed just enough that Aguri broke through her guard and she found herself with the point of her sword at the base of her throat. They stood panting, damp, and smiling broadly at each other.

“You’re dead,” Aguri murmured softly.

There was so much humor in her eyes when she said it, so much joy and affection.Myoge felt the wings of a hundred whistling swans fluttering in her chest. Aguri withdrew her sword. They bowed to one another, their eyes never leaving each other.

“You did well,” the roshi said. It was sometimes hard to tell what he thought because he was frank about one’s skills but never overgenerous with his praise. “You became distracted, Myoge, at the end, but until that moment you were perfectly matched, showing your best form.” He nodded with satisfaction.He focused his eyes on Myoge, then. “You have done the rest of this before, Myoge. See that she is ready in the morning.”

Myogenodded.

“You were amazing,” Keiko whispered to her after he had walked away.

Myoge barely heard her. She mouthed a perfunctory thanks.

The roshi was right. She had become distracted. For a moment, she had been unable to think of anything but how beautiful Aguri was. She had never been so happy to be bested, because she had allowed herself a moment of dwelling in that beauty.The tugging came in her chest again, stronger than it had been on other occasions. Something in her wanted badly to embrace Aguri.

_Myoge, you are in love with her._

She pushed the thought aside.

_What will I do?_

_Nothing.I will do nothing._

She had duties perform now.She would do them. After so long in the zendo, after so much timefrom the outside world, after so much freedom from the prison of longing, she would not falter now. 

_I will do nothing._


	40. Smoke and Broken Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened at Lord Technologies

By the time the two DEO teams came streaming through the front and rear of the lobby, it was already a mess of smoke and broken glass. _Well, now we’ll add a little more,_ Alex thought wryly, and went rappelling out of the chopper and through the skylight, followed by Vasquez, Singh, and three other agents hoping for the element of surprise.

Henshaw was leading the ground teams, and there was no question that they’d need him; they were good agents, all of them, but still human. They needed J’onn Jonzz, whether he took his Martian form or not.

It was not likely to be the last time this week that she dropped out of a helicopter muttering Sutras as she fell and watching the ground grow larger in the space between her boots.

Half a dozen in the Fort Rozz contingent, she counted as she descended. Non at the center. She knew that the humans in her cohort were mostly a distraction and that Kara and J’onn were going to do the gritty work. Whether her team understood that or not was debatable.She glanced to her left. Kara was descending beside her, red cape fluttering upwards as they dropped. They gave each other their war smiles, the look they shared that said there was no love between them that was greater than dropping into danger together.

The glass shattered beneath her feet. 

She gripped the small Kryptonite knife, watching as the teams broke as they had discussed: distract the others while Alex hit Non with the Kryptonite and hopefully slowed him long enough for Kara to knock him out.

Kara couldn’t wield the knife for obvious reasons, so Alex had to strike first. She focused on the back of his neck, prepared for her own death.She descended through the spray of glass as if inslow motion, watching him slowly turning to see her and her team descending on them. She was still smiling. 

She sank the small blade into his shoulder; Kryptonite blockers like the one he wore affixed to his black clothing might help stave off the effects of the mineral’s radiation but if it bit into his flesh and blood, he was damn well going to feel that, even if its effects were limited.

She absorbed the shock of crashing into him, saw his snarl becomeone of pain and rage, and felt herself hurtle to the floor. The wind knocked out of her, she took a moment to observe the situation and saw that Kara was mopping the floor with her wounded uncle.

From here prone position, she pulled out a rotator pulse pistol from the holster at her thigh and fired at a large, bearded hulk charging across the marble lobby, preparing to spring at Kara.The yellow bolt struck him, broke into sparkles across his broad body, and eliciting a roar of annoyance,but he didn’t appear to be injured by it.Still, it was enough to turn his attention to Alex and away frominterferinginthe conflict betweenKara and her uncle, who were tumbling back and forth in the air above the lobby. 

“Hey, ugly!” she yelled at the alien.She changed the pistol’s setting and fired again. This time a blue bolt shot out of it, struck him, and dissolved away.He seemed angrier this time, so she guessedthat one might have done more damage.“Oh, did that sting?” she shouted at him.

Inher peripheral vision, she saw J’onn duking it out with two aliens who didn’t seem highly trained, but who were strong and vicious enough that it might not matter.The crew of human agents were surrounding them, attempting to get shots off into the aliens’ hides. It was a chaos of shouting, muzzle flashes, and bodies being tossed into the air.

But her focus was on the current problem charging toward her with malignant glee. Fortunately, at this moment, Non slammed into the floor, hurled there by Kara, leavinga spiderweb of cracks in the stone. Alex took the opportunity to plunge the kryptonite knife into his skin again and roll away, before he managed to hit back. She hoped it would be enough to give Kara an advantage, because she had a pissed off alien in front of her who was not about to let her get away.

The only virtue was that as far as she could tell, he didn’t seem to have superspeed.

She picked up a hunk of broken marble floor and hurled it at his head. Fortunately, thanks to three years of college women’s softball, her throw was accurate.Unfortunately, it bounced harmlessly off his massive brow.She cursed.

He didn’t look like a Kryptonian; too beastlike. Didn’t go down with the ERK pulse, was only marginally slowed down by the laser. What in the hell was that thing?

She never got an answer.

She heard a burst, and then saw him pitch forward.She rolled out of the way and watched as he made the gash Non had left in the floor even bigger.Standingbehind him was Maxwell Lord, bearing a very large gun. 

“Thanks,” she panted, scrambling to her feet.

“Don’t mention it,” he grunted.

“Nice piece,” she said, pointing at the weapon he was holding.

“Bet you say that to all the guys.”

“Not really.” She rolled her eyes. He was always flirting with her and it was never the time. So this was a Tuesday.

He was now taking aim above them where Kara and Non were circling each other again.Non’s flight paths were a little skewed, as though he had been drinking, so Alex knew the Kryptonite knife had indeed hurt him a little, but skill for skill, he still outmatched Kara.If he weren’t wounded, it wouldn’t be going this well. 

“If you hit Kara,” she warned, “I’ll rip out your liver with my bare hands.”

He smiled tightly at her. “I got this. Go help your boss out.”

She turned around and drew her sidearm.He was on the far side of the lobby now, engaging with the other aliens. The DEO team had been whittled down some. She could see a few black-clad bodies laid out on the floor.She ran up the staircase to where her drop line still dangled, knotted it once around her hands, and swung across the lobby like a kinetic ball in a Newton’s cradle, hoping that attacking from an angle they weren’t expecting might shift the odds for her. 

She hurtled downwards into the fray, firing her Glock repeatedly. She gazed down the length of her arm and through the steel sights on the top of it the weapon, releasing shot after shot that rang out in the polished lobby.

Sometimes, the old fashioned tools worked best.

One of the four aliens that were tangling with J’onn and the team needed about ten of those 9mm rounds to go down, but she did. J’onn glanced up and gave an appreciative nod, which was about all they had time for. 

She was vaguely aware of the sound of Max Lord’s gigantic gun firing a big, whining, smoking pulse of something up at the two Kryptonians hurling each other across the cieling. She glanced around in time to see Non take a hit, go tumbling backwards, smash into one of the high steel beams that held up what remained of the shattered skylight, and then drop through the steel and glass staircase, sending loose bolts and shards of glass everywhere. 

Things happened quickly then. 

“BREAK!” Non shouted. He was laid out on the floor, scrambling to his feet.Clearly, between the Kryptonite and his struggles against Kara and whatever the hell it was that Max had just fired at him, he was hurt.

Two Kryptonians broke away from the group fighting J’onn and were at his side instantly, grabbing him and shooting away through the shattered skylight and nearly knocking the chopper out of its hover. 

The other two grabbed J’onn and tore out the back, bounding away into the night.

She took a moment and looked around.Two injured Fort Rozz fighters, a dozen DEO. Non escaped. J’onn missing.It dawned on Alex that she was the ranking officer on site.She gestured to Vasquez.“Vasquez, get a cleanup crew in here.” She pointed to the two fallen aliens. “And get those two secured. I don’t care how dead they look.”

She walked over to Max, with two other agents trailing in her wake. “Nice job,” she said.

He smirked at her. “So, you gonna get this mess off my property?”

She nodded. “Yeah. We’reon it now.” She glanced around, and then back at him.“So. Any idea what they were after?”

“Not really,” he responded.

She sighed. She knew him well enough to know that uncooperative tone that suggested he knew more than he was saying. “Max, you could be a little more forthcoming than that. I mean, we just came in here and bailed you out.”

“Really?” he challenged, waving his gigantic gun around. “Because it looked to me like you were in some pretty deep shit till I came out with this.”

He had a way of testing her calm. She holstered her weapon and put her hands on her hips. “Yeah, and without us, you and your penis replacement there would have been pretty screwed too. So, how about you work with us? We want the same things you do, Max. We want to stop whatever they’re planning.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, clearly unimpressed. “Yet you run around with another alien. And, I’m sorry, but how did you know that I was being hit? Were you just hanging out having a coffee outside? This is still my property, Agent Danvers and I need you to get off it.”

She stepped a little closer. “Max, if you have something that you know would be interesting to them, why wouldn’t you share it withus?”

“Maybe because I don’t trustgovernment spooks.”

“Can we not make this about your issues with authority?” She shook her head. “Look, we have an alien invasion.A legitimate hostile invasion. Of all the places in the world, of all the places in America, of all the places in Nat City, they chose to hit here. Why do you think that is?”

“That’s my problem, not yours. I’m gonna beef up my security. Now, you’ve been real helpful, Agent Danvers, but I don’t have to give you anything, and I won’t be. I keep my labs heavily classified for a reason.”

Alex stayed calm. But she needed to move quickly. She needed to change his mind. “If you don’t cooperate with me, I have no choice but to assume you’re cooperating with them.”

He didn’t receive this well. “And then what?”

“And then we take you to my cozy underground desert bunker for drinks.”

“Not exactly how I envisioned our second date.” 

“Oh, it’s pretty much exactly what I had in mind. Two martinis, both for me, and you behind some plexi.” She gave a humorless laugh.“Oh wait. I don’t drink. I guess it’s just you behind some plexi, then.” She was stone cold serious now. “You coming or what?”

“Voluntarily?” He scoffed. “Hell no.”

“Okay. We’re goingto do this the fun way, then.” She turned to the two agents behind her. “Secure him, please? He gets a free trip to Club Mojave.”

She stood aside and let the agents cuff him. “I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to read me my rights,” he complained.

She winked at him. “But I’m not a cop.You don’t have rights.I don’t exist.”She gestured at the lobby, which was already being cleared out.“And we were never here.”

On the chopper ride back to the desert base, Kara sat next to her. “Well done, little sister. You gave him a hell of a fight.”

Kara seemed unconvinced. “Are you sure this was a good idea, taking Max Lord like this?” she shouted over the din of the whirring blades.

Alex shrugged. In truth, she didn’t know. “It’s a live combat situation. You have to make decisions sometimes.”

“But what are we going to do about Hank?”

“I don’t know yet,” Alex answered frankly.“We don’t even know who’s in charge till we get back to base.”

Kara sighed.They sat in quiet for a few minutes. “Alex,”she said finally, “I … are you ever going to tell me what happened that night? When we first faced Astra together?”

Alex shook her head. “I can’t.”

Kara frowned. “But why?”

Alex shrugged. “You just have totrust me.”

 

 

*****

 

 

Astra had a lot of time to sit in a contemplative position beneath the green lights which made her feel vaguely sick, and wonder whether she had underestimated the humans. Or perhaps, as her thoughts drifted back to Agent Danvers, perhaps it was really just the one. She wondered whether the human would return.

Agent Danvers made Astra feel strange. She couldn’t place or explain it, but she felt an itch of curiosity every time they encountered one another, going back to the very first time. 

She heard the base surging to life outside her cell, boots running in formation outside the door. Whatever had happened, some of them had made it back alive.


	41. A Look About

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ase decides to take Ardith to explore the island on which they've landed.

“Do you really think Ingrid was going to push her in the water?” Jetta was asking as the ship listed in the dark waters off the shores of the island.

“Her face had murder written on it.”

Jetta frowned. “Why not just let her, then?”

Ardith huffed. “Because! Ase is the only reason we’ve been protected from anything. Who knows what Harald or any of the others would do to us without that.”

He seemed dissatisfied, but let it go nevertheless.

Ingrid was unlocking some chests in which several torches lay stacked, having remained somewhat dry.She produced a flint and one by one, began lighting them and passing them out.

“Do they mean to go ashore?” Wyne wondered. 

“Looks that way.” The crew were walking around, pulling up the decking planks to inspect the condition of their cargo and having conversations. Ase was talking with Bjorn’s wife. The Saxons watched as about half the crew sat at the oars and rowed the ship closer to shore.

“What do you suppose is out there?” Wyne gestured to the dim shadow of the land ahead of them.

Ardith shrugged. “Trees? Grass? I’ve no idea. I’m not clear on where we are.”

“Do you think we might escape here?”

Ardith consideredhim. “It all depends.”

“On what?”

“If there’s civilization out there. If it’s close to something, maybe we can get away, get to a town, find a way back to Haedwalle. If there’s nothing … it’ll be a bit harder.”

“Lifeon an island in the middle of nowhere still beats slavery,” Jetta remarked.

“Yes, but there’s no way of knowing how we could get away. Depends on too many things that we can’t tell yet.”

“I suppose,” he agreed, but sounded doubtful. 

Ase came to them then, and spoke to Ardith in Danish, pointing to the shore.Ardith didn’t really understand. “We’re going to the land?”

Ase seemed satisfied that she had communicated. 

The crew began dropping over the side of the boat and into the icy black waters that came nearly chest-deep.Ardith cringed a little at the thought, but soon she andher companions were also in the water, wading through the wet sand to make their way ashore, carrying lit torches above their heads.Several taller men carried small chests on their shoulders. The group made its way up the beach, andas their little pinpricks of torchlight coalesced on the sand, it became clear that further up the beach were woods.

By this time, Ardith had started to notice that she was cold, that her clothes were sticking to her, and that she badly wanted to eat something, preferably by a fire.

 

 

******

 

Ase looked at the woods. If she was right, this island was not inhabited. She had sailed past it many times and had not seen any meaningful signs of civilization. Still, she felt some investigation might be worthwhile.

Hilde approached her, looking concerned. “Ase, what are you thinking of?”

“I’m thinking I want to know whether there is anything worth our while in those woods.”

Hilde frowned. “Ase, you swore to me that we would be careful here. An excursion now would be a terrible idea.”

“Yes, but it’s my terrible idea. I’ll go alone, if need be.” And then paused for a moment, considering her options. “Or perhaps I’ll bring my woman.”

“Hilde!” Bjorn called from where he was investigating a fallen tree, picking at its bark. “Don’t be so dense. Why do you think she wants to go into the woods with her woman?”

Hilde looked annoyed. “I don’t care,” she said, “but she should wait until morning.”She looked at Ase, her eyes serious and urgent. “There’s too much magic here, Ase. Please.”

Ase waved her hand. “Alright, alright.” She looked over at Bjorn. “What about that tree, Bjorn?”

He shrugged. “I think we can split it open. The wood inside might still be dry enough to get a fire going.” 

Ase nodded. “Good. Put the Saxonlads to work, then.”

He was incredulous. “You want me to hand them axes?”

Ase looked at him as if he were stupid. “What is the point of having slaves if we aren’t going to have them do work we don’t wantto do?”

Bjorn frowned. “Yes, but handing them axes doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

Ase laughed and strolled over to where he stood. “Bjorn. We are ten times their number. And besides, they’re useless without Ardith to lead them. I’ll take her away with me and then they’ll be docile as sheep.”

“Away where?”

“The woods. Maybe there’s more wood, dryer wood, further in, where the trees grow thicker together.”

He scratched his beard. “But Hilde said–”

“I know what Hilde said. I won’t go far,” she promised. “I’ll just take her to help me gather, and the lads will behave themselves.”

Bjorn seemed doubtful.“At the slightest hint of anything amiss, you will come back?” Bjorn took Hilde’s warnings of magic quite seriously.

“Of course.”

“And you won’t go too far, yes?”

“Of course.” She glanced around the beach, where the crew was sticking their torches into the sand and taking inventory of everything that they had brought from the boat. “Besides, if it’s inhabited at all, it’s best we know it now, hm?”

He nodded. “True.”

“So it’s settled.”

 

*******

 

Most of the Danes knew their names, but it still surprised Wyne and Jetta when one of them addressed them using it. Brida was calling them.

Ardith looked up. “She’s asking for you.”

Wyne turned around. “She’s coming this way with axes.” He looked urgent. “What do you suppose she-”

“Sh,” Ardith said. “She doesn’t mean us harm.” She saw Bjorn beginning to hack at the fallen tree he was inspecting a moment ago. “I think she means to put you to work.”

Wyne sighed with relief.

“I suppose I’ll be glad of it,” Jetta said, trying to muster some cheer. “I haven’t gotten to move about much since we got here, except when we were working the sail just now.”

Brida came over and looked at the two lads, and then gestured for them to come with her. Ardith started to follow too, but Brida held up a hand. “ _Nej_ ,” she said. “ _Ikke dig._ ” _No, not you._

Ardith became anxious. She didn’t care for the idea that she would not be able to remain beside them and help translate. Not that her Danish was so good, but she at least knew a little.

Ase came over then, and tugged at her hand. She was pointing into the woods. “You want me to come with you? Into the woods?”

Ase said something in Danish, which Ardith didn’t understand. But she let herself be reluctantly led away from her friends, who were being brought over to where Bjorn stood with the fallen tree.

 

******

 

Ardith resisted at first, pointing to her friends. Ase smiled. “You’re worried about them. It’s alright, they’ll be fine.” She sighed, and called outto Bjorn, “Be sure to feed her friends along with everyone else, Bjorn!”

Bjorn nodded.

Ase stroked Ardith’s damp hair. “You see? Your friends will be taken care of.”

Ardith frowned, but seemed persuaded enough to offer no more resistance. She knew the word “friends” at the very least.

They moved through the trees, leaves and soft ground giving under their feet. It still drizzled a little, but the canopy of trees kept much of the water off of them. 

“Hilde says there’s magic here,” she said aloud to Ardith as the walked. “She used to practice it herself, you know. Freyja’s magic, actually. We call it seidr, I don’t know if you have another name for it.” She felt Ardith squeeze her hand a little at the mention of Freyja’s name. “She taught it to Odin,” she went on, “and it allows the practitioner to shape reality and the threads of fate.”

“Woden?” Ardith asked.

“Woden,” Ase agreed. “Yes, Woden, Odin. Same god, I think.”

The torch threw crazy shadows around them as they moved through the woods. Ase continued speaking, knowing that Ardith didn’t understand her, but feeling peculiar walking without any wordsbetween them for so long. The dark between the trees was thick and deep, and Ase wondered how far it went.She followed where the trees seemed thinnest, to what she was fairly sure was the west.

Ardith began speaking. Ase listened as they walked, wishing she had even two words of English to rub together and make a thought. The girl was telling her a story, perhaps, or wondering aloud about what lay ahead them. She couldn’t say. But she almost didn’t mind; just the sound of her voice was pleasant enough.

She saw a patch of sky through the trees as they struck further west.“Look,” she said, pointing up, “it seems this breaks over that way.”

Ardith nodded, and followed along, still holding onto her hand.

Ase tried not to think too hard about the chill. 

The trees thinned onto a bog. It was hard to see in the cloudy night how far it stretched.She squinted. The surface of the water seemed to be alive with something, or several somethings.The shadowy husk of a small hut was perched at the lip of a muddy strip of land fifty paces north.A weak yellow light flickered within.

“Sh,” Ase said, and she held up her iron hand.She passed the torch to Ardith, and wrapped her hand around the hilt of her sword.

A shape emerged from the hut, shambling, carring a torch of his own. It looked to be an elderly man, dressed raggedly.He caught sight of them from beneath the brim of a large, floppy hat, and waved. “Friend or foe?” he called cheerfully.

He spoke Danish.Ase smiled. “Neither. Our ship is moored on the north shore.We took damage and water during the storm.We’re just having a look about.”

He sloshed through the shallow water towards them.Ase was aware of little round things bobbing on the surface of the water, scores and scores of them, like a carpet. She glanced back at his little shack.

“Do you live here?”

He chuckled. “Believe it or not.” 

A woman emerged from the hut then, also carrying a torch. “Papa,” she called, “you shouldn’t be talking to strangers.”

The old man chuckled. “They’re not strangers. I’ve only got one eye, and she’s only got one hand.” He looked at Ase with his one good eye that twinkled even in the torch light. The other was covered with a patch. “We’re old friends now, aren’t we?”

Ase was vaguely unsettled by him.

“Papa, don’t be rude. Don’t mind him,” his daughter called as she approached. “We don’t get many visitors here.”

He chuckled again, “Just so, just so. Well, we’re about to go and fish on the other side of the island, but you’re welcome to dry off in the shack. We haven’t very much, but you can rest your bones for a little while. We won’t be back till morning.”

“Fishing?” Ase wondered. “In the middle of the night?”

The daughter drewcloser and put her hand on her father’s shoulder. “Fishing is always best after a heavy rain. Cranberries are delicious but we can’t eat only that.”She laughed a little.

Cranberries. That was what those little round things were that carpeted the surface of the water. She’d stumbled into a cranberry bog. “I see.”

The old man knelt downand plucked one from the water. “See for yourself,” he said pleasantly, and handed it to her.

Ase demurred. “No, thank you, it’s–”

“Just eat the damn thing,” he said sharply. That one eye of his glared at her.

Ase frowned.

“Papa,” the daughter scolded him. “You could be a bit nicer than that.”

Ase popped it into her mouth. It was hard. She wedged it between her back teeth and bit down, and itburst open, flooding her mouth with a tartness that was almost unbearable.

“Now don’t spit it out,” the old man warned, back to his amused self. “You’ve got to chew all the way through the sour and then you’ll find it quite nice.” He plucked another out of the waterand handed it to Ardith.She took it from him, and glanced at Ase.Ase nodded to her to indicate that yes, it was not dangerous, it was just a too-sour berry. She watched Ardith’s mouthpucker as she bit into it and chewed thoroughly so as not to offend the old man.

“Good, good,” he said.Then he turned to his daughter. “Shall we, my dear?”

“Yes, Papa.”

They watched the old man and his daughter slosh away back to the shack, where a small boat sat in the mud, walk it into the water, and row away into the moonless night.

“That was very strange,” Ardithsaid aloud after they had disappeared around a bend.

Ase started and her head snapped around to stare at Ardith. Her Danish could not have possibly gotten this good this quickly.

“Have you been hiding from me all along that you spoke more Danish than you let on?” she demanded.

Ardith stared at her in confusion. “Have you been hiding that you speak English?”

Ase shook her head. “I don’t.”

“Well you are now,” Ardith answered testily. “So?”

“No, I’m not!” Ase insisted. “You’re speaking Danish.”

Ardith shook her head. “No… this isnot possible. I don’t speak Danish. Not really. I only know a few words.”

Ase began to laugh. “Well it certainly sounds as if you do. Perhaps it was the cranberries.”

Ardith, hands on hips, stared at her. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Hilde said there was magic here. Maybe it was the cranberries. We ate them, and now we can speak to each other.”

An awkward silence fell between them as they each considered what this new development mightmean.

“So…” Ardith said slowly, after a long moment. “Should we go into the shack?”

Ase nodded. “Let’s go into the shack.”

 

 

 


	42. The Luminous Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aguri makes a confession before taking her vows.

Aguri sat in the warm water, remembering the first bath that Myoge had given her.How long ago that seemed now. Zen had been so foreign and strange to her, then. Now it was about to become her whole world.

Myoge’s hands were just as gentle as they had been before, and Aguri leaned back against the side of the bath, listening to the sweetness of Myoge’s voice singing chants to cleanse her spirit in preparation for tomorrow’s vows.She would commit herself to Zen, and to the Buddha’s teachings, and to this zendo, and she would stay here with Myoge for the rest of her days.They would share _zazen_ every day and be one with the world and each other.

Her heart had sung when they sparred with steel. She had become conscious of the transcendent love she felt for Myoge, that had been growing this entire time. It was nothing so childish as lust, but a deep longing to be near to her, to blur the boundaries of body and spirit.

It nagged at her, as she felt the streams of warm water running down her skin.Myoge’s hand reached down frombehind her, into the water, to check the temperature. Aguri took hold of it. It was warm and damp and alive. She drew it close to her chest and held it there.

“Aguri?”

“You know,” she said slowly, “I’ve never felt such peace in my life as the time I have spent with you.”

“You see? And you were going to kill yourself,” Myoge said softly. “Isn’t this better?”

“You have taught me to love,” Aguri went on. “Love as an action, not as a feeling one holds inside.”

Myoge’s fingers uncurled, her hand resting over Aguri’s heart. “Then I have taught you the most important thing.”

“I think…” Aguri took a deep, slow breath. “…that I am staying here, more than any other reason, because I want to stay with you.Because I can scarcely imagine a perfect moment of zen if you aren’t in it with me.”It was true. It had always been true.

“Zen is not about you or me,” Myoge responded gently. “We are only illusions, as you know.”

“Then you are an illusion that has captured the illusion that I call my heart.”

Myoge hesitated for a long time, palm resting against Aguri’s chest. “Aguri, this life I have chosen … and that you are about to choose–”

“I know,” Aguri interrupted her. She didn’t want to hear Myoge’s rejection. “I know that we make choices. I know that nuns don’t get to take lovers. But I can’t carry this feeling alone. It’s too much.”

Myoge leaned down and put her other hand on Aguri’s shoulder, resting her chin on top of Aguri’s head. Aguri felt her place a chaste kiss on her temple. “Then I will help you carry it. I don’t want you to leave, either, unless it hurts you to stay here.”

Aguri shook her head. Her heart was shattering, but it was necessary. “It would hurt me far more to be separated from you.” She was glad Myoge couldn’t see her face, because she was shedding a few quiet tears. “I’m sure you don’t feel the same.”

Myoge cradled Aguri’s damp head gently against her chest for a moment. “No,” she said after a pause. “But you are still very dear to me.”

Aguri wept in silence while her tears dropped into the water.

 

*********

 

Myoge took her time drying Aguri after the bath, wiping the water from her scarred body. It was a strong, graceful, athletic form, she reflected, and the scars only spoke to the courage that beat in her chest.

Myoge had already broken one of her root vows tonight. She had lied. But how could she protect them both if Aguri knew what was truly in her heart? If Myoge confessed her own feelings, it would be that much harder to stay apart and then vow after vow would go up in smoke.No, if Aguri was to keep her honor, she could not know what Myoge felt.

After the bath, it was time to cut Aguri’s hair. “Are you afraid of cutting it?”

Aguri shook her head. “No. I’m sure I’ll miss it at first, but I’m not afraid.”

Myoge felt a twinge of sadness. She would miss it too, and perhaps more than Aguri would. It was thick and black as night and the streak of white was like lightning. She would miss it framing her face when she smiled, or strands slipping out of her ponytail in a sparring match, or sticking to her face when it rained. As she stood behind Aguri, holding the shears, she drew a long, deep breath.

She raked her fingers once through Aguri’s hair. It occurred to her as she stood here that she had often wanted to do so, and would not have the chance again. The moment was brief, but in it, she imagined leaving her fingers nested there.

This was another step in the process of Aguri committing herself as a novice nun, and ensuring that they could not be lovers.She chastised herself for the longing she felt, then gripped Aguri’s hair into a ponytail, brought the U-shaped nigiri scissors to it and squeezed.

The blades bit into Aguri’s hair. Myoge winced. When she pulled the scissors away, she was holding a long, thick hank of hair in her hand. Her lip trembled.

“It feels strange… my head suddenly feels light,” Aguri commented, sounding small.

“Yes,” Myoge agreed, and said nothing more. If she spoke too much, Aguri would hear the sadness in her voice, and that would not do. She spent a few more minutes clipping away, wanting to weep but careful to center herself and refrain from doing so.After a short time, Aguri’s scalp was in front of her, waiting to be properly shaven with a straight edge. Myoge took the razor and carefully ran it over all the uneven patches of hair, leaving only smooth skin behind, excepting the one small patch on the back, just below the crown, that Konjen Roshi would remove himself tomorrow morning.

It was good, she thought. Aguri would be less beautiful. _Perhaps_ , Myoge thought, _my heart will ache less._

When she came around in front of her to inspect her work, Aguri looked up at her with soft eyes. Her cheekbones stood in strong relief and her eyes shone as though lanterns burned behind them. She was luminous. _Oh, no._

“We’re just alike now,” Aguri murmured, smiling.

Myoge nodded. “Yes. You look like a nun.” She glanced around, looking for any reason to look away. “I need to clean up,” she muttered. She swept up the hair on the floor. But when Aguri was not watching, she took a lock of her white hair and concealed it in her palm.

 

*******

 

“So,” the roshi began, “before you take the many vows a novice must take, we must discuss the name I have chosen for you.”

Aguri nodded deferentially.

“I have discussed it with Myoge, who has been closely supervising your training, and I believe she would be satisfied with my choice.”

Aguri had implicit faith in Myoge’s choices, since she had never really been wrong once, in the time that Myoge had been teaching her.

He sat down across from her, gazing at her for a moment before continuing. “I have chosen the name Shōshin for you.”

She was familiar enough with the manner in which names were chosen.“Shō, meaning bright?”

He nodded. “Yes. Luminous. Sometimes, I give a name which I feel the novice must aspire to, to give them a goal for their dharma practice. In this case, I feel that you are better served by a name which represents you, and that which we found within you once you were able to let go of your pride.”

She considered him. “Shin” could mean many things. “How is it written?”

He smiled faintly. “A very good question.”He took up a piece of paper on the table in front of him and a brush. He dipped the brush into the pool of black ink in his stone, and drew carefully, first the character for “shō”, and then he paused. “Now, as you no doubt know, if I write it one way, it can mean ‘dragon’. While that is a fine name, ‘Luminous Dragon’ is a bit more grandiose than the person you’ve become since arriving here, isn’t that so?”

“Yes.”

“Now, ifI were to write it another way, it would say, Luminous God.” He chuckled to himself. “It entertains me to realize that this describes your goddess Amaterasu. But it does have the same problem as the other one, don’t you agree?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“However, my intention was different. So, I write it thus…”He paused, and began carefully drawing out the simple, unusual character that was to represent the second part of her dharma name.“…and it represents the heart.”

She looked at the characters and how they fit together as he had drawn them. Luminous Heart. She liked it. It felt true.

“I will not choose a _dōgō_ for you for some time. Your practice will need to mature significantly before we do this.”

Aguri recalled how she had read the difference between the _bōgō_ , which was given at the time of ordination, and the _dōgō_ , which came much later. “Does Myoge have one?”

“A _dōgō_? Yes, of course. I named her Teikō - Faithful Illumination. And it seems that she has fulfilled that name very well with you, hasn’t she.”

Aguri nodded, wondering if he could see her blush at this. “Yes.” Star Flower Faithful Illumination. A name of healing and guidance. How could she not love the person who bore that name?

He peered at her for a few moments. “Are you well?”

She closed her eyes and nodded once. “I am. I have come to feel a strong bond with Myoge. She has indeed illuminated the way for me.” She would let him parse that if he chose.

“That’s not unusual. _Kohai_ often develop strong feelings for their _senpai_.” Aguri sat motionless under his scrutiny, wondering whether he fully understood. “This will become part of your dharma practice as well.”

She didn’t ask what he meant by it.

“Now, there are a total of fifteen vows you must take to become a novice, but the five root vows are most important. Has Myoge gone over this with you?”

Aguri nodded. “She has.”

“Good. So you will not become intoxicated. You will remain celibate. You will not lie. You will not steal. And you will not take any human life, except ––and this is important,because it’s a bit different from most other _zendo_ —in cases when the order is called into service.”

She nodded. “Yes, I wondered about that. I have heard it was a very long time since we were last called into service.”

“That’s so. We don’t act in the service of politics and territorial disputes. But where innocent lives have been at stake due to the tyranny of wicked men, we have acted. The Buddha says, ‘One is not called noble who harms living beings. By not harming living beings, one is called noble.’ Sometimes we protect from harm those who can’t protect themselves.”

Aguri considered him. “And what does it do to our … our buddhahood?”

He smiled. “That is also a very good question. I’ll be frank, because I want you to understand what you’re entering into. It’s not very good for it. That’s why it’s a rare occasion when we choose to spend our spiritual energy in such a way. You must be prepared for the idea that we may be called into service. We don’t answer to a shogun or a _daimyo_ , and we don’t hire ourselves out. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “I think so. We make the sacrifice that is necessary at that time.”

He looked satisfied with her.“So, you are to live and practice as part of this zendo for three years, at which time you may choose to stay on or return to a lay person’s life.”

 

******

 

So she rose in the morning with the first light of the sun. Myoge was already sitting up and watching her. They smiled to one another, and there was a layer of sadness beneath, but having allowed herself the night to become comfortable with her choice, Aguri knew that it was the right one. 

Keiko met them outside the _shōdō_. Within, the order was assembled in accordance with how the roshi conducted these types of ceremonies. The fifty or so monastics were inside the spacious main room where Aguri had sat _zazen_ with them many times by now.The great Buddha statue sat with his serene, all-seeing expression at the far end of the room. Before him sat Konjen Roshi on a cushion, his posture echoing that of the Buddha, calm and awaiting her. Myoge went forward and sat in front of him, facing out. Keiko stood at the edge of the room, watching, curious and bright-eyed.

Aguri went forward, passing the men and women she would call her brothers and sisters.She bowed to them, to the four corners of the room, to the Buddha, to Myoge, and to the roshi. She took her place on her knees before him. Her eyes found Myoge’s, and they were brimming with emotion. He regarded her for a moment.

“Novice,” he began, “a patriarch said, the more attachments you have to this world, the more you will be fixated on human relationships, and the more you will seek personal love.” She glanced at Myoge, who offered the faintest of smiles.“Therefore, the manifestation of your original face must be the manifestation of love beyond love.” _Love beyond love._ That was indeed what she had learned here.“This activity is the true realization and manifestation of peace in the world. Novice, please leave your seat and make a bow of deepest gratitude for the kindness showered on you by your family, and all other beings who have enabled you to reach maturity, who have and will support your practice in the past, present and future. Tell them that you renounce the world at this moment. Please realize that you will be assisted by these kindnesses throughout your long practice of the way. “

Aguri stood and bowed again to Myoge, to the other members of the order, and to Keiko, who also seemed overcome and not quite knowing what to do with herself.

The roshi picked up a small bell and rang it once.

“You have taken up the path of the bodhisatva.You have completed the training required.Will you commit to fulfilling your responsibility as a member of this order?”

“Yes,” Aguri said.

“Are you able to throw off the lay person’s life and commit to awakening, a rare thing, difficult to imagine?”

“Yes.”

He gestured for her to come forward. She came near to where he sat, bowed, and knelt again before him. Then she lowered her head to touch the low dais where he sat, directly before him.

“This last patch of hair will now be removed. Your roshi is the one and only person who can remove this piece, so I will now take it away for your benefit.”

She remained thus for several moments, feeling the edge of the blade against the back of her scalp as he removed the last little patch that Myoge had left behind. “Destroying appearances,” he said ashe worked, carefully and methodically. “Persevere in aspiration.” The blade scraped for a few more moments. “Severing attachments… you part from the world.Leaving home, follow the bodhisatvaway. Vow to be a benefit to all beings.” She felt him take a cloth and wipe the back of her head. He was done. “You may sit up.”

She returned to her upright posture and looked up at him. “No longer picking and choosing, please accept these robes which are the symbol of your commitment and responsibility as a disciple of the dharma.” He presented her with a neatly folded robe the same saffron color as Myoge’s. She took it, and they bowed to one another.

She stood, and recited as she had been taught for this moment. “This robe has no form, it is the symbol of absolute freedom. Freedom from life, and from death. It cannot be compared to anything, nor can anything be compared to it. I now recieve it gratefully. May it be worn forever, from generation to generation.”

She bowed again to the roshi, to Myoge, to the assembled, to her niece. Then she left the main room and changed into her new robe. As she slipped into the robe, she heard the bell ring again, and the order began to chant:

_“Buddha, dharma, sangha, pure and selfless joy…”_

She returned to the room, clothed in the new robe.She made her way through the crowd of chanting people, her mind and spirit attuned to the chant, realizing the vows she had just taken. She had not expected to feel different; she had never felt different after any other vows she had taken. But in this moment, as she moved back to the front of the room, she felt her old life slipping away from her with each step.

No more Aguri Inouye. No more cruelty. No more bitterness.

The bell rang again. She bowed again, and took her place before the roshi.

He spoke. “If you wish to learn the way of the dharma, first you have to accept responsibility for your life, andyour mistakes, and vow to begin anew. You must then take refuge in the three treasures: Buddha, dharma, and sangha. Let us begin with purification.”Buddha, the teacher. Dharma, the way. Sangha, the community she was now becoming part of. She was prepared for this.

He picked up the bell again and began a new chant: _“All selfish and discordant activities…”_ He rang the bell.

The assembled echoed back, including Aguri. _“All selfish and discordant activities…”_ She bowed.

 

 _“…that I have manifested since time immemorial…”_ The bell rang. She bowed.

_“…that I have manifested since time immemorial…”_

 

 _“…misguided by beginningless greed, anger and delusion…”_ The bell rang. She bowed.

_“…misguided by beginningless greed, anger and delusion…”_

 

 _“…born of my body, speech and mind…”_ Bell. Bow.

_“…born of my body, speech and mind…”_

 

_“…I freely admit and accept responsibility for.”_

 

The weight of the old lifted, with each line, each echoing back, each time her forehead touched the floor.

 

_“I take refuge in the Buddha.”_

_“I take refuge in the dharma.”_

 

_“I take refuge in the sangha.”_

 

She felt the light within her, the luminous heart, felt ready to fully embody that name.

She was uncertain how long the chants and repetitions went on, but she lost herself in them, reciting, rocking forward, rising again, until the roshi stopped. In the long silence that followed, she returned to herself, and saw him looking at her.

“Today,” he said, “you commit yourself to the Way, and as such, you will be called Shōshin, the Luminous Heart, offering your light to the benefit of all those whom you touch. Do you accept this _bōgō_ with joy?”

She bowed. “Yes.”

“You may rise and honor your brothers and sisters, your roshi and senpai and family in attendance, Shōshin.”

She rose, and bowed. The members of the order were solemn. Myoge’s face was contained, but her eyes shone. Keiko smiled and wept.

_I am Shōshin, Luminous Heart._


	43. The Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Astra wakes up in the cell for the first time.

 

Astra’s head was throbbing. She opened her eyes.

The first thing she perceived was green lights. What had Kara called it? Ah, yes. Kryptonite. 

Her radiation shield had been removed, so she was susceptible to it again, and it was a low, dull poison in her system. She had a dim memory of her niece unceremoniously dragging her in here by the ankles. She wasn’t sure how long ago that was. She wondered if she would see the human who had filled her head with such strange thoughts.

“What are your plans?”

It was her niece’s voice.

Astra groaned a little, pushed herself into a sitting position. She couldn’t quite remember everything, but it would come back.

“Little one…”

“Don’t call me that anymore.”Kara’s voice was hot and crackled with anger.

“Kara, do younot understand what we are trying to do?”

“Not really. Why don’t you tell me?”

Astra remembered the day when her monitoring of Earth’s various broadcasts yielded the unexpected sight of her niece, now a grown woman, wearing the crest of the House of El on her chest. Astra had been aware that Kal was here, and grown tired of seeing his face in the broadcasts. Superman, they called him. Astra had never cared for that side of the family. But she had dared not hope that Kara had somehow managed to find her way here too. Krypton had died. She’d had no choice but to assume the worst.

Astra sighed, rubbed her temples, and focused her eyes on Kara’s face. “Humans are too disorderly, too individualistic, too convinced of their own superiority–”

Kara snorted. “That last one doesn’t sound familiar at all.”

Astra gave her a hurt look. “Why don’t you trust me?”

“Because,” Kara shot back, “you’ve attacked me, my friends, my team, and you’ve been lying to me since you got here. I think you got locked up in Fort Rozz and you stared out into space until everything good inside you died.”

That stung. Kara didn’t understand the sacrifice. “I went there because I was trying to protect you.”

Kara’s eyes closed for a moment. “Don’t try to weaponize my love for you against me.”

Astra shook her head. “Do you know that your mother stole the spy beacon I gave you? Used it to call me, because she knew that I would come to you no matter what, even if I was wanted by the council?”

Kara stared at her.

“I am not the one who has weaponized your love.”

Kara paced away from the cell and then back again. She wore a flowing cape with her pressure suit, reminding Astra of the cloaks that the council elders had worn on Krypton. She wore it with the dignity of a woman from a great house.

“We don’t have to be on opposite sides,” she finally said. Her voice had a note of pleading in it that pierced Astra’s gut. She wished it were that easy.

“Then release me. Join me. Save them, my way.”

Kara shook her head. “You don’t know any way but violence. That was what got you sent to Fort Rozz in the first place. Why can’t you save them my way?”

“You were always smarter than your cousin,” Astra said, not bothering to hide her disdain. “I cannot fathom why you follow in his path.”

Kara grew angry again. “I follow my own path, not his or anyone else’s. Including yours. You have a choice. You don’t have to attack us.”

“Us,” Astra said bitterly. “The humans are gifted with a world that they do not deserve. Look at how they treat it. Do you think they will do the right things without being made to do so?”

Kara shook her head. “I think I don’t know you anymore.”

She turned on her heel and strode away.

 

*****

 

Alex sat in the dim of Hank’s office, re-watching the body camera video of the earlier fight.

Kara was strong, maybe stronger than Astra, but she had nowhere near her aunt’s training. Alex had tried to teach her as much as she could, but the reality was, Astra was a general. Her technique and tactics were simply going to be superior.

So why had Kara won?

Alex had faith in Kara’s heart, of course, but it still didn’t add up. Whatever Astra had in her mind, she was clearly committed to it. She backed the video up again.

She pulled back to the moment where Kara was flat on her back, the camera looking up at Astra. She should have delivered a finishing blow, right there.

“She hesitates,” Alex whispered, counting a full five seconds. The five seconds allowed Kara to pick herself up, hurl herself into Astra, and end the fight.She paused the video again, and scrubbed back slowly, till she could see Astra’s face clearly for a moment. She looked pained, conflicted.

Astra clearly was someone who didn’t like to lose, yet she was giving Kara ample time to recover herself. Alex frowned at the screen. She wanted a word.

 

****

 

She strode into the holding room and marched up to the cell with arms folded.Astra was on the floor, stretched out and sinuous, lounging like a tiger. Alex pounded her fist on the plexi wall.

“You lost on purpose. Why?” Alex demanded.

Astra sat up, looking bleary-eyed. Her gaze focused on Alex and she smiled. “It’s you again. I was hoping to see you, Starflower.”

Alex shook her head. “You don’t get to use that name. You can call me Agent Danvers. And by the way, I don’t know what you did to my mind back there, but I had it fixed. We’re not playing whatever little game you had planned.”

Astra was more confused than indignant. “I did nothing to you,” she objected. Then she seemed to think about Alex’s statement for a moment, and asked, “Did you also feel something in that moment, as I did?”

Alex scoffed. “I told you. I’m not playing that game. Whatever you put in my head, I had it taken out.”

Astra looked disappointed. “That is a wasted effort. We cannot take away what the gods give us.”

Alex didn’t really know what that was supposed to mean. “Well, given that our last interaction was kind of unpleasant, you understand I’m not really inclined to put much faith in anything you say.”

Astra stretched and pulled her shoulders back. Alex thought that for all the world, this woman was like a tiger. But then again, Alex had always felt that tigers didn’t really belong in cages, and as far as she was concerned, Astra did.

“All of this would be less unpleasant if you humans would simply submit.”

Alex scoffed. “You’re not in a position to bargain at the moment, you know. You haven’t really learned very much about us at all, have you?”

Astra smirked. “You’d be surprised at how much I have learned.” She peered at Alex. “I have enjoyed your Roman tacticians immensely. And your Neitzche is very interesting. Some of it is wrong, but interesting.”

Alex shrugged. She hadn’t read much Nietzche.

Astra pursued. “The doctrine of eternal recurrence… you know it, yes?”

Alex shook her head.

“Everything that is happening has happened before and will again.”

Alex scoffed. “Very interesting. Maybe we can discuss it some more after you tell me what you have planned.”

“So you remember nothing of our first meeting?”

“I remember what I need to remember, and nothing more. I told you,” Alex repeated, “whatever you did to me, I had it fixed. I’m not playing your game.”

Astra looked disappointed. “It was curious,” she said, seeming suddenly distant.

Alex sighed, irritated. “Look, Astra, I want to know why you lost on purpose. What’s all this really for? What are you trying to pull? If I have to come in there and beat it out of you, I will.”

 

*****

 

Such spirit! So fierce! Perhaps it was just the weariness talking, but at the moment, the slender human’s cold anger delighted her.“I would not make it easy. I am a master of seven different fighting styles.”

The human, Agent Danvers, seemed to bristle at the challenge. She seemed to enjoy the idea of finding out if they were fairly matched. “Of course you are.”

Astra was disappointed to learn that Alex had erased all of what she had experienced. How human of her, to experience the movement of the divine and try to wipe it away.

“So,” the human began, stepping closer to the glass, “how long have you been here?”

“I have no way to tell the time in this sub-basement,” Astra responded dryly.

“On Earth.”

Astra smiled faintly. “Ah, that. By your time frame, I have been here for nearly ten years.”

“And I take it it’s not just you and Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum?”

“Who are Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum?”

“The guy I killed. And the guy who kicked me in the ribs and flew out the skylight with you.”

“Ah, yes. You’re the one who defeated my Hellgrammite.” Astra remembered that this small, soft human was more formidable than she looked. “No, he was one of my men. My husband is here also.”

Agent Danvers put a hand up against the glass. “How many men in total, General?”

Astra smiled. “What does the name Starflower mean?”

Agent Danvers shook her head and muttered something that was probably a swear.“Alright, if you’re going to be like that.”She paced away, and came back a moment later. “So did you all escape from Fort Rozz together, then? How did you get here?”

“Escape Fort Rozz?” Astra almost chuckled at that. “No. We led an uprising, took control of that floating prison, and I piloted it. After a decade suspended in time in the Phantom Zone, staring into the blackness of space, I found a way to push it out. And then we landed here.” _Landed_ was a generous description. _Crashed_ would be more accurate. “In the meantime I managed to whip the scum of the galaxy into quite a little army.”

Agent Danvers nodded. “I see. And how many is that?”

She smiled again. “I will tell you when you tell me the meaning of the name Starflower.”

The human glared at her. “How did you hear that name?”

Astra didn’t want to make her angry enough to leave. She knew that she’d be leaving soon enough when the next piece of the plan was initiated. “It was given to me. By the gods, I think. What did they give you?”

“I told you,” the human fumed, “nothing I’ve chosen to remember.” She gazed at Astra through the glass. “Where is the Fort now?”

Astra laughed. “I am not telling you that. I like you. Your spirit impresses me. But I cannot give you that information.” 

The truth was, the Fort was embarassingly close. They’d crashed on an island off the coast of California, someplace that seemed opulent and fussy. They’d sunk to the bottom of the Pacific and remained there, cloaked, for seven days while the humans trawled the island and the waters nearby, trying to determine what had happened. 

In a stroke of brilliance, she had managed to drive the humans away by sending out signals that would lie to their inferior instruments and make them see hazardous radiation where there was, in fact, none. As Astra would discover after a decade of monitoring Earth’s cultures, only physical danger would keep the rich from rebuilding their precious monuments to their own wealth.

Once it seemed clear that the humans did not intend to rebuild, she and Non and the other Kryptonians in the Fort lifted it from the ocean and placed it on a large open lot at the north end of the island.

“Do you understand that your world is on the brink of disaster?”

“Oh, right,” the human said with audible sarcasm. “You’re here to save us, right? I’d forgotten.”

“It was all I thought of when I was working to eject us from the Phantom Zone. Praying that Rao would give me the chance to save another world.” Her eyes focused on the agent’s arm. Her short sleeved shirt showed her bicep and a tatoo of ocean waves that curled around it.

The human looked at her curiously for a moment, seeming to soften a little. “There are a lot of ways to do that,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me yours?”

After they had been here a little while, she began monitoring the broadcasts, and she and Non revived their plan, which they had all but abandoned after their struggles to deploy it on Krypton.

“I like you,” she said earnestly. “But you’re too late.”

Astra sat and watched with perfect calm as another human came running in. “Ma’am, units reporting in, there’s a force descending on Lord Technologies.”

The human glared at her, muttered something under her breath that was probably a swear, and promised, “We’re not done here,” before jogging from the room.

Astra hoped they weren’t.

At some point she had become aware that her niece was not always alone in the broadcast footage; that a couple of humansin tactical gear were often hovering around the periphery. And almost always, one of them was this Agent Danvers, the human who had, for an inexplicable moment, shaken Astra to her soul the moment they had first encountered each other.

Strange that the human didn’t seem to want to talk about that. Humans seemed so uncomfortable with their spirituality. Of course, Astra reflected, she wasn’t one to talk. She found more comfort these days in the constancy of science than she did in her distant gods. No matter where you were, hydrogen was always the same mass.

The human hadn’t been wrong. Not entirely. It had always been Astra’s intention to be captured. She had a plan and it was unfolding as expected so far. But that had not been the reason why she hesitated in delivering the blow.

Kara was her blood. The last daughter of Krypton. She was braver and smarter and stronger than Astra could have ever hoped for her to be.She remembered the day that her sister Alura, a judge of Krypton, had used the spy beacon to call her. She had been in hiding with Non, holed up far from the city, when she’d gotten the signal. She’d given it to her niece as a gift, meant to be their own special secret. Astra had loved Kara as fiercely as a daughter, and she told the girl that no matter what, if she got a signal from Kara, that she would come as quickly as she could.

Alura had discovered this secret, and taken advantage.

Astra knew that rationally, Alura had to sentence her for what she had done. And she knew that her sister had made the only choice that would have kept her alive. Imprisoning her on Krypton would have meant she would have died with everyone else, and Alura’s last words to her had been, “I believe you, and I will fight for your cause, my way. I will try to make them listen.” So she took the only option available to her, which was to sentence Astra to the Fort and count on her superior skills and spirit to keep her alive.

But Alura’s methods were no more effective than Astra’s, as it turned out.Krypton had still died.

The humans would bend, eventually. She regretted that she would most likely have to kill that fierce, brave Agent Danvers. She was a bundle of questions. But Astra knew that she probably didn’t have the luxury of time to get them answered.


	44. To Give One's Hand to the Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ardith's curiosity finally gets satisfied.

It was hard to imagine two people living in this tiny shack at the edge of a cranberry bog.Inside was only a table with a few things on it, and a bed of rushes with a thick, rough-looking blanket on it. A lantern still burned on the table.

“Not joking when he said it wasn’t much,” Ardith observed.

Ase smirked. “No.But we don’t need much, I think.”

“Do you think that the gods meant for us to stumble upon this?” Ardith asked.

Ase leaned against the table, and Ardith looked at her.Even tired, with wet clothes sticking to her, she was impressive. “How can it be otherwise?”

Ardith became awkward, then.She noticed Ase chuckling to herself. “What’s so funny?”

“Bjorn said I wanted to take you to the woods with me because I wanted to fuck you.”

Ardith’s breath hitched. “Did you?”

Ase smirked. “Maybe a little. I had other reasons in mind. But now that we’re here, I confess I can’t think of anything else.” 

Ase drew closer to her, and kissed her in that way that made every nerve on her body stand up. In moments, it became so that they were grasping at each other’s damp clothes and moaning quietly into each other’s mouths. She felt Ase’s hand slide up under her wet kyrtill and shift, and up her back. Ardith slipped them both over her head and stepped back. They gazed at each other in the low light.

“I didn’t think I’d have the chance to have you alone until we arrived home,” Ase whispered, admiring her.

Who knew why, but the gods had provided this moment. “Take me to bed,” she whispered.

Ase’s eyes traveled over Ardith’s bare torso, taking in the prickles of gooseflesh and the stiffness of her nipples in the cool night air. “You’re more beautiful than I even expected,” she marveled softly. She undid her belt and it dropped to the floor, her sword thudding in the dirt. She came and knelt down in front of Ardith, and unlaced her breeches with her teeth, holding onto her thighs as she did. Ardith looked down at her and felt a wave of weakness. Ase peeled her out of her breeches, then stood up and led her by the hand over to the bed.

Ardith lay back on the rushes, strange and prickly underneath her back, vibrating in anticipation. Ase settled on the bed beside her, and began to kiss her face, her neck, and down her chest.

“I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you,” she murmured.

Ardith sighed. She closed her eyes as Ase’s warm mouth closed around one of her nipples and sent a stab of longing through her that ended between her legs. She moaned.

Ase stopped and lifted her head. “I will do nothing that you don’t want,” she promised.

But Ardith’s body was lit up with craving. “I want you to do everything,” she said hoarsely.

But Ase took her time, seeming to want to taste every part of her. Ardith felt herself growing wet, wanting to be touched. “Please,” she was sighing. She didn’t even know what she wanted, but Ase was making her ache and it was sweet and torment all at once. “Please,” she sighed, “I’m a very good girl.” She smiled with satisfaction when she heard Ase moan against the place on her ribcage where she was kissing.

Ase looked up at her.“Ah, so you are.”

Ardith had a request, then. “Ase?”

“Yes, my star.”

“I want to see you, please.”

Ardith burned with curiosity as she lay here naked in front of Ase; she wanted to know what Ase looked like without her clothes. She wanted to know if the sight of her would make her feel more of these sweet, wild things.

Ase obliged. Ardith watched as she raised herself up and pulled her damp clothing off, first her kyrtill and then breeches. She knelt between Ardith’s legs, looking down at her expectantly.

Ardith had never looked at a woman with lust before, but she had also never seen a woman like Ase. Her shoulders were broad and arms powerful, belly taut with muscle so hard it looked like polished bronze. Her skin bore countless pale scars, great and small, testament to every battle she had fought and won. And every part of her was proud, from the cut of her thigh muscles to the firm, round breasts. Ardith bit her lip. She had no words for what she saw.

Ase’s eyes were soft. “Does it meet with your approval?”

Ardith nodded, struck dumb for a moment as she took in everything that Ase was: strong, powerful, flawed, and unmistakably womanly. “You are … like a god,” she murmured at last.

Ase smiled. She unfolded herself slowly onto Ardith’s body, and their cool skin warmed against each other. They kissed, deeply, with soft passion, and Ardith’s hips pressed against Ase’s muscled thigh, seeking more sensation. 

Ase stopped to take a breath. “Do you want me?”

Ardith nodded quickly. “Very much.”

Ase kissed her again.

Ardith stopped. “But you know,” she said, a little regretfully, “I am going to kill you eventually.”

Ase just smiled. Perhaps a little sadly, but Ardith wasn’t sure. “No, you won’t.” She kissed Ardith again. “Now hush, and let me make love to you.”

Bewildered at this response, Ardith surrendered. She watched Ase kiss down her belly, and then push her thighs apart, and then kiss her there, deep and slow. Ardith groaned and spread her legs open further.

Ase lifted her head and looked up at her. “Yes?”

“Yes,” Ardith moaned.

Ase paused, breathing her scent, and then kissed her again, skillful and gentle. Every thought turned to ash in Ardith’s head, replaced by pleasure, and more pleasure. Ase continued to kiss until the pressure in her sex became unbearable.And then, it broke.

She clutched hold of Ase’s braids, rough and thick in her hands, and shivered against her mouth. If this was sex, she wanted more of it. If this was lust, she wanted to drown in it and die in it. Her entire consciousness, her entire world, shrank down to the hot current of pleasure that flowed from her sex to the rest of her body, making her head and fingers and toes tingle. Ase stayed there, licking soft and easy, till the raw high had subsided and she was left shuddering at each little touch.

Ase clambered back up to her, and kissed her mouth. 

Ardith tasted herself on her lips, and licked at them, curious at the flavor, which was unlike any other.

“That’s you on my lips, my love,” Ase sighed.

Ardith smiled. “Do that to me again.”

 

***

 

 

Some time later, they lay together in the rushes with the rough blanket drawn over their legs. Ardith was curled around Ase’s frame, exhausted, still wet and swollen, and satisfied beyond measure. “You’ve had many women,” she guessed.

“Yes. And you?”

Ardith laughed and shook her head.

Ase seemed amused. “I am your first?”

Ardith nodded. “Yes. First woman, first anybody, really. I tried once or twice with boys but it …” She flushed, embarrassed. “…it didn’t get very far.” She trailed her fingers over Ase’s belly, tracing a scar that ran down one of her ribs. “Where did you get this scar?” she asked.

“At Ølstrup.Arvid the White’s axe.”

“What happened to him?”

“I pulled it out of my ribs and buried it in his face.”

Ardith snorted. “Of course you did.”She traced another large one that ran in a crazed diagonal line across her lower abdomen. “And this one?”

Ase sighed. “At Fjollum. When I fought the Swedes the first time. It was where I met my husband, Njord, and fell in love with him on the battlefield. I led a hundred shield maidens, and we took the day, but I paid for it with that scar. A sword in the belly. It left me unable to bear children.”

Ardith was surprised at the sadness in her voice as she said this. She was even more surprised that it moved some compassion for her. “A sword in the belly and you lived to tell about it?”

Ase shrugged. “I am very hard to kill.”

Ardith continued her slow exploration. She hesitated to ask, but she had wondered for some time now. “And your hand?”

Ase became quiet. “There is what I tell everyone. And then there is the truth,” she said after a long quiet.

“What do you tell everyone?”

“That I lost it to Jarl Einar at Skarvøld when we fought the Swedes again.”

“And what is the truth?”

“That I lost it to Njord, when we fought.”

“You fought your own husband?”

Ase nodded. “Yes. When I learned that he had betrayed me and everyone who served him. I did fight Jarl Einar at Skarvøld. We fought fiercely in King Halbagr’s hall. He fought like a bear, but I was too quick for him. I had nearly beaten him, had him down on his knees in the middle of the hall when he said to me, ‘If you kill me now, your husband will never be king.’ I demanded to know what he meant.

“He said, ‘Fjollum worked out so well for him, why would you stand in the way of it now?’ And it became clear, then. At the time of the battle at Fjollum, Njord served Earl Torvild. When things came to blows with the Swedes, Njord roused a number of armies to assist Torvild’s cause, including my own. He fought so well, his tactics were so brilliant, that it was impossible not to admire him. And after I healed, he asked me to marry.

“We had a good marriage, a marriage of equals. He didn’t care that I couldn’t give him children because I had given him Fjollum, he said. I understood he needed heirs and told him he could whelp as many bastards as he wished so long as he shared the women with me. We fought together, raided together, fucked together.”

Ardith shivered at the last. She was fascinated with the entire tale. Ase went on.

“So, Earl Torvild was killed at Fjollum, and Njord, after his showing in the great battle, was clearly the one to rise and succeed him. Torvild had left no heirs. What I had not known until that moment was that it was part of a plan that Njord had executed with Jarl Einar. Njord had offered him certain concessions, and Einar would see Torvild killed, and an equitable balance would be had.”

Ardith winced. “So you confronted Njord.”

Ase nodded. “Yes. He came upon us in the hall. He saw me about to strike Einar and bid me to wait, that we could not do this. It confirmed what Einar had told me. He and Njord were working together. Just as Fjollum had been pre-arranged with the Swedes so that Njord might seize Torvild’s power without looking like a traitor, he had now made the same arrangement to see King Halbagr killed at Skarvøld in order to again be the obvious successor.

“I would have no part in such an arrangement. Fighting at Fjollum had cost me my womb. I had lost sisters there. I had led my women into battle for a lie. I could not forgive him. So I struck down Einar, and then I rushed upon Njord. He was nearly my equal, but in the end, I was better. But I paid the price.” She held up her iron hand, and Ardith observed how ornate its design was. “So I killed him, took his power, and became earl in his stead. And since that day, I have sought to erase his legacy in every way that I can.”

“Are there many women who are earls in their own right?”

Ase shook her head. “There have been a few, here and there. Right now, I know of only me.”

Ardith stroked Ase’s face. She almost wished they could not understand each other, because she felt the grief in Ase’s words. “So then why give your heart to me so freely, when you have known such betrayal?”

Ase turned her head and looked at her. “Can you not feel that we are destined?”

Suddenly, Ardith was confused again. The certainty she had felt when her body was aflame with lust was suddenly replaced with doubt.“I …don’t know what I feel.”

Ase looked disappointed. She didn’t pursue further. After a long silence, she said, “Tell me about your sister. How does a Danish girl come to be sister to a Saxon?”

“Caja?” Ardith shook her head. “About five years ago, some Danes came and tried to raid our village. They were a very small party, but still, battle hardened Danes are nothing to joke about. Her mother had died, and her father had brought her raiding with him.”

“Stupid. Had he no family she could have remained with?”

Ardith shook her head. “I don’t know. Caja speaks of an aunt too infirm to look after her. But he took her. She was supposed to stay on the boat, but she snuck out. She watched my father cut her father down.”

“Were you fighting that day?”

“Yes. I was only fifteen, and my father made me take Caja and get her to safety. I was angry. I wanted to stay and fight. But she was nine years old, and the middle of a skirmish was no place for her. So I took her to safety.”

“And your father simply chose to keep and care for her?”

Ardith nodded. “Yes. He had killed her father. She was our responsibility.”

“He was an honorable man.”

Ardith felt her chest tighten at that. “He was. I wish you had not killed him. If all you wanted was me, you might have asked for me, you know.”

Ase considered her. “Would you have come?”

Ardith looked at her, eyes suddenly welling up. “We’ll never know.”

Ase heard the tremor in her voice and held her tightly. “My star,” she whispered, sounding helpless.

Ardith wept quietly for a moment. “I loved him, and you took him from me. It stains everything that I feel for you.” So much for seduction and treachery. She was feeling too honest. Her desire for Ase was overwhelming, inexplicable. Ase was the wolf, the wild thing, that Ardith had always secretly longed for. But she came wrapped in wrongs that Ardith could never forgive. “You cannot simply take everything you want through violence. If you had simply chosen to woo me from the beginning, perhaps Haedwalle would still stand, my father would still live, and my desire for you would not cause me such grief.”

Of course, she did not know if any of that was true. She might never have willingly kissed Ase if she hadn’t thought it was a way to gain her freedom. She might not have discovered the lusts that dwelled in her if Ase had courted her politely. And Jokum would likely not have tolerated it anyway, or not for very long.

Ase held her tightly. “My star, your father killed Caja’s, and yet she came to regard you as a sister. Such things can be forgiven in time, if we all act in good faith and with honor.” She kissed Ardith’s bare shoulder. “It grieves me that Ihave caused you such pain. But let me make redress.”

Ardith lay in Ase’s embrace, and wept for a little while longer. She was too exhausted to be frustrated at how good Ase felt. The gods were clearly responsible for what was happening to them now, though Ardith could hardly guess why. She abandoned trying to understand, for the moment.

“How long do you think this will last?” she asked after a long while without speaking.

Ase stirred. “Hm?”

“This. This magic. Being able to understand each other.”

Ase yawned. “Who can say? It could be gone when we wake.”

Ardith yawned too. “Then I don’t want to sleep. I want you to tell me things.”

“What things?”

“I don’t care. Any things. Tell me about your white braid.”

Ase laughed. “Nothing much to tell, my star. I was born with a shock of white hair that my sister was not. My mother thought I was touched by Thor, because it looked like a streak of lightning. But I prefer to think it’s Tyr’s light that touches me.”

“Hm,” Ardith said. “You have a thunder spirit, I think. But I don’t know much about Tyr. We don’t talk about him.”

Ase drew her closer. “I will tell you about him, then. He is a sky god, like Thor, and a war god, also like Thor, but he is also a god of justice.” She felt Ase’s breath warm against her temple as she sighed, and then spoke. “You know of Loki, I think? Odin’s brother?”

“Mm.” Ase’s body was so warm, Ardith thought sleepily.

“Well, he had a son with a giantess, a great wolf named Fenrir. The gods tried raising the wolf themselves, so that they could control him, because they knew he was to become a great and powerful beast and they feared he would make havoc throughout the nine realms unless they could subdue him. Tyr, the bravest of the gods, was the one he trusted most, and who still would come and feed him when the other gods were afraid to do it. You see, Fenrir was growing so fast, and so large, that it became clear they would not be able to control him. So they decided amongst themselves that they would chain the wolf so that he could not make trouble.

“The gods lied to him; they told him it was a game, a test of his strength. And the first two chains they bound him with, he broke easily. But the last, they had asked the dwarves to make. It was the strongest chain ever made, unbreakable, but soft and light as spiderwebs. Fenrir was suspicious when he saw how thin and soft it was, and said that he would only let them bind him with it if one of the gods would put their hand in his mouth, as a show of good faith.”

“That would be the end of their hand, then,” Ardith commented.

“Indeed. And Tyr was the only one brave enough to do it.”

“Why would he do such a thing, knowing that when the wolf realized what had happened he would lose his hand?”

“There are many thoughts on this, but I will tell you what I think. Tyr was willing to sacrifice because it was about something larger than his own hand. It was about something larger, even, than keeping the nine realms safe from Fenrir. It was about justice. Fenrir had done no wrong, yet the gods sought to imprison him. He sought something in return for this injustice. Tyr’s hand was the price. Tyr was willing to pay it to not only keep the nine realms safe, but to give justice and honor to the wolf he had fed since it was just a pup.”

Ardith absorbed this for a few moments. Tyr had sacrificed his hand for the safety of the world and the preservation of justice. Ase had sacrificed hers for the safety of her land and retribution for her husband’s wrong, and justice for all those who died without meaning in his service. Ardith saw now how Tyr was bound to the wolf, and how Ase was bound to Tyr.

“You fed your hand to the wolf,” she murmured. She couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore.

“Yes. And I would not have chosen differently if I had it to do again.”

Ardith sighed. She could love a woman like Ase, she thought. If only they had met some other way. She let herself fall asleep with Ase saying soft poetry in her ear. At some point, she thought, before she drifted into slumber, it may have switched back to Danish, but she couldn’t be sure. She slept. And then it was morning.


	45. The Timeless Embrace of Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myoge reveals a few truths.

 

“So?”

Konjen Roshi looked at Myoge, waiting for her to explain why she had come to see him.

She took a breath.“I have broken a root vow. You must expunge me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You will not tell me what I must do.”

She bowed her head. “Of course.”

He looked at her for a moment before speaking. “So, which vow? And in what manner?”

She took a deep breath. “I have lied, roshi.”

“To whom?”

“To my _kohai_ , Shōshin.”

He nodded. “Did you lie to represent yourself as more enlightened than you are?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

She heaved a sigh, and stared shamefaced into her lap. “Roshi, Shōshin has… feelings for me of a romantic nature.”

“I’m aware of this.”

She looked up, stunned. “Did she tell you?”

He smiled wryly. “Not in so many words, but it was clear enough.”

“I see.” Myoge rubbed the back of her neck, trying to discern whether this made the conversation more or less awkward. “In any case, she confessed these feelings to me. She asked if I returned them.”

“And?”

“I said no.”

He considered her. “And that was your lie.”

She nodded.

He squinted at her for a moment. “Why did you tell her that?”

She frowned. “I felt that if she knew it was returned, that it would make it more difficult to keep our vows of celibacy.”

He thought a moment more. “Have you looked at her with lust?”

Myoge stared at him, stricken. Of course, it was an appropriate question. “In truth, I have not.”

“So you’re drawn to her emotionally. Are you sure that your feelings are even those of a lover?”

It was a fair question. She thought for a moment. “I am. Not lustful, but something deeper than simply _senpai_ and _kohai_. I am drawn to her emotionally, but … also spiritually.”

He nodded. “What exactly was said?”

Myoge thought. “She said that the illusion that I am has captured the illusion she calls her heart. And then she said she was sure that I didn’t feel the same way.”

“What did you say in reply?”

“I said no, but that she is very dear to me.”

He smirked. “Then you have not lied.”

She puzzled over this for a moment.

“You cannot know precisely what she feels. Did you discuss whether she feels lust?”

“No.”

“Do you feel that she has captured your heart?”

“I … I don’t know. I do desire to be close to her… but…” She trailed off helplessly.

“You do not feel the same as she feels. You cannot, because you and she are experiencing two different things. You do not know what she feels. If you said you felt the same as she did, you would have been lying.”

Myoge was uncomfortable with this. “I suppose…” She was skeptical.“But… there is something else.”

He waited while she gathered herself.

“The vision she had, in the water?”

“Yes, I recall it.”

“I did not tell you that I shared it.”

He pressed his fingertips together and thought for several long, agonizing moments.

“Why would you keep this to yourself?”

She shook her head. “I can’t explain it. I thought you wouldn’t believe me, I suppose?”

He didn’t seem particularly convinced. “Are you sure that’s why?”

“No.” She hunched forward. Her head was buzzing with the kind of fever that she had not felt since before she came here. “I’m not sure at all.”

“It seems to me that she has confused your emotions since long before now.”

She nodded miserably, then looked at him. “What do you think about the vision, roshi? What do you think it means that we shared it?”

He shook his head. “It’s too hard to say. What gets passed from generation to generation is the same flame, the same karma, but not the same souls, as they believe in some other spiritual practices. But perhaps your karmas are intertwined. Or perhaps karma’s light reflected off the water in just the right way to show you something that has never been.”

She looked at him, quizzical. She had never heard him speak in this way.

“What I mean to say is, perhaps there are things that remain beyond our understanding. So we must simply accept them. You and she saw yourselves with different faces, yet still together. Accept that you may never know what it means, even if you spend the rest of your days living, eating and sitting _zazen_ side by side.”

Myoge thought about this for a while.

The roshi sighed heavily. “I must consider what to do with you. Your withholding from me was not a lie in the most technical sense and does not appear to have been done with intent to aggrandize yourself, but I must think on it. It begs too many questions.”

“But what should _I_ do?”

He gave her a wry look and leaned forward. “I can’t tell you what to do.”

“Aren’t you disappointed in me for falling in love?”

He smiled, then. “I’ve lost a fair share of my people to the charms of beautiful women. Usually it’s not the nuns that I lose.” He shrugged. “But no matter. If you suffer with lust, that is a problem. But a deep, abiding love? What could be more Buddhist than that?”

She shrugged meekly.

“Honesty, Myoge, is your dharma now. Take refuge in the Three Jewels. Let them help you to put aside any impulses you may have to keep secrets.”

 

 

******

 

 

Myoge returned to their shared room. There was no real need for them to continue to stay together now that Shōshin had been ordained, but neither was about to suggest separating.

When she entered, Shōshin was sitting in silent meditation, eyes closed, the picture of serenity. She looked up at Myoge, and smiled. “You’ve returned.”

Myoge nodded. She came, pulled the screen behind her, and sat down on the floor in front of Shōshin. “I must speak with you about something.”

Concern crossed Shōshin’s face. “Have I done something wrong?”

Myoge shook her head. “No. I have not been fully honest with you, and I need to be.”

Shōshin frowned. “You have lied to me?”

“No. But I have not told you everything.”

“I see.”

Myoge took her hand and began to tell her that which she had held back these last few months:

“I’ve told you that my father was killed in dishonorable and cowardly fashion, but I haven’t told you who he was, or who killed him, or why. It’s important that you understand these things so that you understand what will I will tell you after.

“My father was a scholar in Shimosen, a well known one. It was from his calligraphy that I learned my swordcraft. But as you know, tyrants often distrust scholars. He had written many treatises against your husband, and was attempting to use his influence with the local daimyos to convince them raise their forces against your husband.

“Noboru’s men had been making incursions into the prefecture. Sometimes they were violent, and sometimes not. Sometimes they were samurai of good conduct, and sometimes they were not. There were two in particular, Keiji Tanaka and Shigeru Sato, whom my father had had words with at a tea house.”

She paused and watched Shōshin’s face pale a little.

“You knew them, I imagine.”

She nodded.

“I was at school in Kamakura when the argument had happened. The morning I arrived home, I reached the house to find my mother sobbing over his body.”

Shōshin looked sick. “They were not acting under my orders when they did this, I promise you…”

Myoge nodded. “And I believe you. But they were your men.”

Shōshin’s eyes welled up.

“This is why the day I found you, I felt that I was being tested. Why else would you, the general who commanded Keiji Tanaka and Shigeru Sato, be laid at my feet in such a way?”

“Myoge…” Shōshin’s voice was hoarse, pleading.

But Myoge put a hand up. “Shh. Indeed you have been my test; you have tested my patience, my compassion, my skill, and my capacity to love. You have tested me and yet, through each test, I found myself opening to you, because through each test, I saw you grow and open as well.”

Shōshin wept openly now.

Myoge felt strangely calm. The roshi was right. Truth was freeing. “Shōshin, I have also fallen in love with you.I feared that truth, for many reasons. Because of what it would mean for both our dharma practices, and our vows, but also because while helping the feared general heal was a test of my compassion, loving the commanding officer of my father’s killers was a test of how boundless my love truly was.”

Shōshin bowed her head. “Myoge …” was all she could manage to get out.

Myoge touched her shoulder. “I am sorry that I could not admit that I loved you until now. And I am sorry I didn’t tell you the truth sooner about how we were connected.”

Shōshin sobbed silently for several minutes while Myoge sat with her.“I can’t stand it,” she whispered after a moment. “To bear any responsibility at all for the death of your father… to have had even an indirect hand in causing such pain to the one I love most…”

Myoge stroked her shoulder. “Please, Shōshin.Don’t cry. I have forgiven you, and opened my heart to you. I just needed you to understand the truth. You deserve to know who I am, and why I could not bring myself to admit how I felt for so long. I’ve been drawn to you since that moment we shared the vision in the stream, and have resisted it so, because I didn’t want to love you.”

“Of course you didn’t. I don’t deserve your love.”

Myoge traced her fingers down Shōshin’s arm. “All beings deserve love. You earned it, by becoming Shōshin. By showing me the Luminous Heart that dwelled in you the entire time.”

Shōshin bent forward until her head rested against Myoge’s shoulder, and she wept quietly some more. “I will never forgive myself.”

“You must,” Myoge said soothingly, “because I’ve forgiven you.” She placed her hand on Shōshin’s back and gently stroked it. “You have my love, Shōshin. It springs from the Buddha’s own love, and is strengthened for passing through me. And if it troubles you that you had a role in what happened, you have the rest of your days at my side to make amends.”

“But what do we do now?”

Myoge continued stroking her back. “We practice the Way. We take refuge in the Three Jewels. We sit _zazen_ , because that’s what Buddhas do. And we do it all side by side.”

Shōshin steadied herself after a long quiet. “If you wish that.”

Myoge nodded.“I do.”

Shōshin found something close to a faint smile. “Then it will be enough.”

They found their ways to their bedrolls, and slept.

 

*****

 

Shōshin’s dreams were strange, murky, and violent. She saw herself being killed by Myoge, a sword piercing her heart. She herself stab Myoge in the heart. Both filled her with horror. She saw a great, flaming bird rise up and breathe fire upon the world until a giant bird with black wings encrusted with ice came up from behind, wrapped the flaming bird in its dark, cold wings, and stopped the flames from pouring out. The ice on the black wings melted and the black bird became a wet, fertile earth, and the fiery bird became the sun. And then it all would cycle again.

She woke, crying out, after how many of these cycles, she couldn’t know. 

The first thing she felt was Myoge’s cool hands on her burning cheeks. “Myoge,” she murmured, relieved to be free of that dream.

“I’m here.” She felt a soft kiss on her forehead.

Shōshin opened her eyes. Myoge sat beside her, pale as porcelain in the shaft of moonlight through the small window.She was gazing down with concern. “I’m alright,” she said in a small voice. 

Myoge said nothing, but nodded. Her cool hand remained on Shōshin’s cheek.

Sometimes, when one wakes in the middle of the night, it feels as though time has stopped, and that one is existing in another reality altogether.The night clasps its arms around the dreamer who has woken, and cradles them in a place where no other moment exists. Shōshin found she was in one such moment right now.

After a long moment of gazing at one another, Shōshin took Myoge’s hand and brought it to her chest, clasped it to her, feeling its cool through the underthings she slept in. They remained this way for several minutes, in silence, gazing at one another.Shōshin looked down at the hand, which lay between her breasts. “That is where you stabbed me in my nightmare.”

“Did I leave a wound?” Myoge whispered.

A moment of hesitation followed, and then impulsively, Shōshin tugged at the strings of her undergarment and it fell open. Myoge removed her hand, and gazed at Shōshin’s exposed chest. Her mouth twitched a little. “It appears I did not.”

Shōshin was not about to break her vows, but she enjoyed lying here in honesty and allowing Myoge to know her nakedness. Her eyes pleaded with Myoge, seeking assurance that she was with her in this moment, this little timeless embrace of night. Myoge’s eyes were soft, traveling over her body with slow curiosity. A faint smile lingered on her lips.

“I don’t need to make love,” Shōshin sighed, “but let me see you.”

“You’ve seen me,” Myoge answered, and her tone sounded almost playful.

“Not like this.”

Myoge smiled, and tugged at the strings of her undergarment. It fell open.It was true, they had seen each other on various occasions, when changing or bathing, but they had always averted their eyes and maintained modesty. Never had they simply gazed openly at one another’s bodies and enjoyed them as they did now.

Shōshin’s breath came up short in her chest. Myoge’s body was strong, slender, lean, and graceful. Her hips were slim and her breasts small but perfectly round. Looking at it made her ache.

She reached up, and with her fingertip, traced the characters of her new name, Shōshin, on Myoge’s chest, just above her breasts. Myoge gasped at the first touch, then chuckled a little as she realized what she was tracing. “You only write your name on things that belong to you, Shōshin.”

“Don’t you belong to me?” Shōshin asked, and she was only half-teasing.

Myoge shook her head, but held still until Shōshin had finished. And then she reached down, and traced her own name with a fingertip on Shōshin’s chest.

“Do I belong to you?” Shōshin asked.

Myoge smiled. “Only if you want to.”

“I do.”

Myoge leaned down then, and covered her mouth with a soft, slow kiss. Shōshin’s breath caught and she parted her lips to recieve Myoge’s affections. Together, they breathed deeply. “Don’t think about the past,” she whispered against Myoge’s lips, “and don’t think about the future. Concentrate on the present moment.”

She felt Myoge’s breath align with hers as their kiss drew on, deepening until Shōshin’s body felt a forgotten ache. Her skin became greedy to feel Myoge against it. Her hands drifted up to settle lightly on Myoge’s cheeks. She heard herself moan softly into Myoge’s mouth.

Myoge stopped and pulled back. She looked pained. “Shōshin, we can’t.”

Shōshin flushed. Of course they couldn’t. She knew that. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to…”

“You wanted closeness. I understand. You wanted to share something that we share with no-one else. And now we have. But…” Myoge looked sad. “…we should probably not do that again. It will end in making love, and then we will both have broken our vows.”

Shōshin nodded. Myoge was right. She had woken a visceral longing in her own body and she suspected in Myoge’s too. “Perhaps we should not room together,” she said dejectedly.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to separate,” Myoge sighed. “But look how easily that could have turned into…” She trailed off. She didn’t want to say it again.“…more.”

“Desire is suffering,” Shōshin remarked, not even sure if she was being ironic anymore.

“It certainly is at the moment,” Myoge agreed. She seemed grumpy now. Whatever the moment was, it had passed.

“Don’t be angry with me,” Shōshin pleaded.

“I’m not. I’m just… frustrated. I don’t want to feel these things and yet I don’t want to stop feeling them, either.”

Shōshin nodded in agreement. “I think I create my own complications in life,” she reflected after a moment.

Myoge snorted. “Do you think so?”

Shōshin felt wounded by this. “Just as you once did,” she reminded her. “Some of us have not been acquainted with the Way for as long as you have.”

Myoge stretched, sighed, and pulled her undergarment closed.She crawled back over to her bedroll.“I’m sorry, Shōshin. You’re right. Your stumbling block was pride, mine was anger. And when our commitment to dharma is challenged, those are the troubles that will rear their heads again. Let’s bear that in mind.”

Shōshin closed her own undergarment and drew the blanket up. “Goodnight, Myoge.”

“Goodnight, Shōshin.”

“We shall do better in the morning.”

“Mm.”

The moon slipped out of the window, and Shōshin slept. She dreamt dreams that, much to her gratitude, she didn’t remember.


	46. Eternally Swatting Flies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max Lord is uncooperative. Kara and Astra face off.

Alex walked into Max Lord’s office, which seemed primarily made of bulletproof glass and brushed steel. He was sitting at his desk, drinking something out of a travel cup, which was also brushed steel. Behind him, on mute, hung a large television screen that was playing the local news. She wondered at what point he himself would start to morph into brushed steel.

“Agent,” he greeted her with his trademark sneer that was trying to be a smile. “What brings you here today?”

She approached his desk and perched on the edge of one of the two chairs in front of it. “Well, I’m kind of hoping you can help us out.”

He feigned modesty. “Oh, little old me? What ever can I do for you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Look, Max, we’re dealing with hostiles. We’ve been trying to track them and we’re coming up dry, even with everything we’ve got in-house. I’m hoping maybe you can spare a little brain power to see if there’s anything we haven’t thought of.”

He looked skeptical. He swirled his cup as he considered her. “So, you’re asking for a favor.”

Alex sighed. “Kind of.”

“So, aliens, I’m assuming?”

She nodded.

He sniffed. “I’m gonna pass. Thanks, though.”

She huffed. “Come on, I know you can’t be this short-sighted. You can’t be refusing to help just because you’re mad at me.”

“Mad?” He snorted. “I’m not mad. I just felt a little hurt that you only went out with me so you could have one of your spooks snoop around my lab.”

She sighed. “I can’t do this with you right now. Come on. Hostile aliens. Aliens, who you hate, which you have professed loudly, on camera, many times. Isn’t this kind of right up your alley?”

He shrugged. “Depends. What are you gonna do when you find them? You gonna blow them to dust? Or are you gonna invite them for tea? I mean, you follow Supergirl around like you’re a puppy, Agent Danvers, it’s honestly a little embarrassing.” He leaned back in his chair, smiling smugly at her, trying to figure out whether his little jab had landed.

Alex glared at him. Although he didn’t know what her relationship with Kara actually was, he had picked up that it was a sensitive spot for her and liked to poke at it. If he wasn’t one of the best minds in tech, she wouldn’t be standing here. “What do you have to hide?” she asked him calmly. “Unless you’re doing human cloning down there, I really don’t care what you’re up to.”

He smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

She rolled her eyes again. “No, I really wouldn’t. Look, we don’t need to even come in here. You can come out to us. Probably easier anyway.”

He shook his head. “No, like I said, I think I’ll pass. I’m not interested in sharing my tech or my time with John Q. Law.”

“What part of hostile aliens did you not understand?” she demanded. “It’s not like they’re going to pass you over because they know you don’t like them.”

“I heard they only kill the firstborn.”

She frowned at him. “I’m… pretty sure they’re not Jewish.” She shook her head.

“Look, I can protect my own house. You just worry about yours.”

She shook her head. “Alright, if you’re going to be that way about it.” His building was an overflowing toybox of cutting edge communications tech. If he wasn’t going to be cooperative, maybe it was just best to surveil for a while and see if they could get something they could use as leverage to make him friendlier.

“Giving up that easily? I’m disappointed,” he said.

She scoffed.“No you’re not.” She glanced at the large face of her watch, which was strapped against the inside of her wrist. “Well, I’m going to stop wasting both our time, Max.” She glanced up at the television screen over his shoulder, and the blood left her fingers and toes.

The local news station had a chopper shot of Astra hovering in the air over the city, next to the CatCo building. The sound was off, but the captions indicated that they hadn’t identified her or figured out why she was there or what she wanted.She felt a text buzz in and knew it was Kara telling her that she was about to go up and face her. 

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered under her breath.

He tsked. “My virgin ears. I thought Buddhists didn’t swear.”

She barely glanced up from her phone as she tapped out a response, striding toward the door and calling out over her shoulder, “That’s Mormons, Max. Go fuck yourself.”

 

******

 

Astra hovered above the city, looking down at how it spread out, sparkling in the yellow sun. The architecture was varied, the plan incoherent, but she saw spots of beauty among the incoherence. Why couldn’t the humans understand that they had to put aside petty things and work together to salvage what they had?

This was a risky gambit she had chosen. Non wasn’t fond of it when she had expressed her intention to do things this way. “We don’t _need_ your niece, strictly speaking,” he’d pointed out. “And there are surely better ways to get access to the technology we need.”

He had remained cool but Astra knew him well enough to know he was growing frustrated with her. “If you had encountered the last of your own blood here, I would allow you the same latitude. And no, we do not need her, but she serves alongside the only branch of the humans’ military that represents anything like a threat to us. She has all of their data and is aware of their capabilities. She is of value to us in that way.”

She was not entirely sure that this was true. But she wasn’t ready to give up on Kara. She wanted her to understand what she truly intended. She was disappointed in Kara’s earlier refusals to listen to her and wanted one more chance to make clear what her plans were.

She dropped into a lower hover, circling lightly between a couple of the shiny glass towers where the humans conducted their affairs, waiting to be noticed.After about fifteen minutes of circling, she looked around with satisfaction and saw a pair of helicopters with cameras hovering at what they deemed a safe distance.

She chuckled to herself. If she decided they weren’t at a safe distance, they wouldn’t be, but right now, she wanted their attention. She wanted to be seen. She wanted the sight of her hovering in the air to be splashed all over the humans’ broadcasts. She wanted to be “we interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcast” news.

Soon enough, Kara appeared.

“What do you want, Astra?” she demanded as she approached on the air. She floated so beautifully, Astra thought. She had gained mastery of that skill, at least.

“I just want to talk,” Astra answered.

Kara’s eyes were blazing. “I don’t see what there is to talk about.”

“I know you love these foolish humans. But you have forgotten that they are beneath you. If you want to save them, they must be taken in hand like the children that they are.”

Kara’s scowl deepened.

Astra moved a little closer to her. “Kara… I have been in hiding here on Earth for a long time. I have watched their broadcasts and read about their culture.And I understand what you love about them.” She thought again of her strange encounter with the human who had wielded the Kryptonite knife. “But you cannot lose track of yourself and your heritage.”

“I haven’t!” Kara exclaimed hotly. Astra saw her hands ball up into fists.

“Do even remember the sky over Argo at night? The hymns? Do you remember the myths I used to tell you about the Old Gods, before Rao became the One True Light?”

Kara was glowering now. “Nightwing and Flamebird and Vocc Who Builds The World?Yeah, I remember that stuff. I can still be Kryptonian and have this place be my home.”

“Then why resist me?”

“What’s your plan? What are you going to blow up this time?”

Astra shook her head. “Little one, that did not go the way I had hoped–”

“I don’t care! Your way didn’t save Krypton!”

Astra felt like she had been pierced through the heart. “Because I didn’t have you on my side,” she said. “If I had you now, it would be different. The humans will listen to you. There would be no need for violence. We could bring them to heel without it.”

Kara shook her head. “I didn’t come here to rule them. And I’m not going to let you do it, either.”

Astra’s heart broke a little. So it was going to come to blows after all. “Then we have nothing more to talk about.”

Airborne hand to hand combat was a different animal than the ground-based fighting styles Astra had studied all her life. She and Non had of course spent time sparring since they got here, in order to keep their skills up, but they had not done much in-air sparring. They had no foes here who could challenge them in that way, so it seemed more an academic exercise than anything else.

So whatever vulnerabilities Kara had, she also had a degree of comfort with flight; she knew instinctively how much disruption she needed to create in the gravity fields to send herself hurtling one way or the other, and knew how to draw up to a short stop and change direction suddenly. She was a nimble flyer; she’d had years to work on it, after all. In this one respect, Astra was forced to admit that she was superior.

In the air, it was harder to land a blow on her niece, and they whizzed around each other, careening down the glass canyons of office towers that sparkled in the noonday sun. Astra would barrel into her, only to find herself spinning sideways in a downdraft that Kara had been wise enough to catch, and Astra would have to push mightily to adjust her density to push them both back up.

Kara’s cape was impractical; Astra got hold of it more than once and flung her down into the asphalt of the street, where the impact left a large pothole. But she also saw Kara reverse herself several times and change her arc to graze the street level and come bobbing back up, glaring at her with new fury.

Still, Astra knew she was holding back. Kara had the same complement of powers that she did, but wasn’t using any of them. Neither of them, it seemed, truly wanted this fight. Astra wanted her niece to join her instead of standing in her way, and Kara wanted her aunt to abandon her plans and stand alongside her in protecting Earth in the same ineffectual, sentimental manner that her cousin did. Eternally swatting flies, Astra thought. What was the point?

Kara saw to it that this aerial engagement involved a fairly limited amount of hand to hand combat, as she had clearly figured out that she was not on Astra’s level in that regard. Astra was tiring of chasing her, scything across the skies in pursuit of her. Not physically of course; the yellow sun gave her limitless stamina. Just emotionally. She had allowed her niece to play this game for long enough. Astra was ready to engage the next part of her plan and bring this nonsense to an end.

Knowing her vulnerability was the humans, Astra swooped down into the street, lifted up a bus full of them, and launched it into the air, aiming at the face of one of the gleaming glass towers. She saw Kara’s eyes widen in horror as immediately, she adjusted her trajectory to grab hold of the mass transit vehicle as it arced through the air, and push it out of the way of the building. And then carefully, she brought the bus back down, setting it carefully on the street not far from where Astra had picked it up and thrown it.

While she was standing at the edge of the sidewalk, catching her breath after the rescue, Astra dove down and plowed her downward into the lawn beside the road.They left a long rut of dirt in the grass as they skidded halfway across the lawn before stopping.

Astra stood up. She drew her fist back to knock her unconscious. She looked down at Kara, and saw for the first time a terror in her face, the thought crossing her mind that she might be about to die at Astra’s hand, and she paused.

It was not a long hesitation. Just two seconds, maybe three. But it was enough.

Kara came hurtling up from the ground, rocketing into Astra, and wrapped her in a bear hug, cutting off her circulation and airflow.She struggled against it, but it was strong. Kara’s will was unbending. Astra decided that while she had multiple methods at her disposal to break free of this hold, it would all be easier if she simply succumbed to the darkness that was starting to creep in at the edges of her vision. Kara would take her back to where the humans kept their secrets.As the world went black, Astra thought that she was proud of her niece. She was a fighter.They were still family.


	47. A Few Small Repairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after. And trouble the night after that.

Dawn had not quite broken when Ase awoke, on the bed of rushes, with Ardith’s naked body curled up in her arms. She would have sworn the whole thing was a dream.

She kissed Ardith’s shoulder, wondering what she would find in the girl’s eyes when they opened.

Ardith shifted, turned in the bed and looked at her. She gazed at Ase for a long time without saying anything, her sleepy expression difficult to read. She seemed to be working through what had happened the night before and wondering the same things that Ase had wondered: did it really happen, and what would happen now?

She said something in English. Ase shrugged. “I’m sorry, my love, it looks like the magic has left us.”

Ardith frowned.

So that was that.

The sky was paler than it had been when they fell asleep next to each other, but the sun was not yet up. The lantern had burnt itself out. Ase sat up in bed. “Perhaps we should try another cranberry,” she muttered, and kissed Ardith again. Her mouth was warm and receptive, and Ase dwelled in it for a moment before climbing out of the bed.

The air was chilly, and Ase was aware of her skin prickling at its touch. She prowled out the front door of the shack, glancing around, and then waded into the chilly water, plucked out two more cranberries from its surface, and walked back into the shack.She handed one to Ardith.

They popped the berries in their mouths. As they had done the night before, they suffered the tartness and chewed through it, swallowing them. They looked at each other expectantly.

“I want to know if it was really the berries,” Ase said, her mouth still puckering from the taste.

Ardith shook her head and said something in English.

They waited a few more minutes.

Ardith said something else.Ase didn’t understand. She sighed heavily. “So it was only last night and not again. I wonder what Hilde will say about all of this.”

They went out and bathed briefly in the bog to wash the smell of their lovemaking off, and then went back inside.

Ase cast about for their clothing and tossed Ardith’s over to her. In wordless disappointment, in the dim of rising day, they got dressed.They left their breeches and boots for last, waiting until they had waded out of the bog before putting them back on. They’d dried somewhat over the brief night, and were only slightly damp now. No sense in getting them all soaked again.

Hand in hand, they made their way back through the woods to the encampment. Finding their way was easier now.

 

*****

 

When they broke back out onto the beach, Ardith saw a large fire still burning. Several Danes slept, several more were strutting around the fire mostly naked while their clothes dried. Wyne and Jetta were tied to a fallen tree, passed out on each other.Ardith felt a stab of guilt; it hadn’t been much of a bed, but she had slept in a bed last night.

How would she tell them the truth of what had happened last night? That Ase had made love to her and that she had wanted it again and again. That they had been visited by a strange magic that made them able to understand each other and that Ardith had, for the first time, doubted her convictions when it came to killing Ase and escaping.

She loosed her hand from Ase’s and pointed to her sleeping friends. Ase nodded and waved her off. She came over and sat beside them in the sand, brushing some sand off of Wyne’s face and hair.

He woke, yawned, and his eyes focused on Ardith. “You all right, then?”

She nodded. “You two?”

He nodded. “They had us split an awful lot of wood last night but they’ve had the fire going.”He gestured to their shirts, which were drying over the log they leaned against. “Dead tired but none the worse for wear otherwise.”

She nodded. She looked at Jetta, who still slept. He normally kept his head shaven but their journey had been long enough at this point that his hair was starting to grow out a bit in little woolly tufts. “What about him?” she wondered.

“He is hungry, but otherwise fine,” Jetta commented, answering for himself, with eyes still closed.

Ardith smiled.

“What about you?” Wyne asked. “We started to worry when you didn’t come back.”

She shook her head. “We went through the woods and found a bog on the other side. There was a small shack, so we sheltered there for the night.”

“Sounds fancy,” Jetta joked. He opened his eyes.

She slid over and leaned against Jetta’s shoulder. “What do you suppose you’ll do once we get home?” she wondered.

Wyne yawned. “Well, I suppose, if my father’s shop still stands, that I’ll go back to work there. Or perhaps Cartimandua will have some carpentry work for me at the manor house. And, you know…”He paused and then added with less enthusiasm, “…and find a wife, I suppose.”

She smiled. She knew he had no interest in that but also knew he understood his responsibilities. “And what about you, Jetta?”

Jetta shrugged. “Well, I think I would like to study the art of the stained glass windows that the Christians have.”

Ardith frowned. “Since when are you an artist?”

Jetta squinted at her. “Well, I’m not. But I’d like to be. My craft is glass. I think I’d very much like to make windows like the ones they make for the churches.”

Ardith laughed. “But they’re hardly going to let a Pagan work on one of their churches! You’d have to become a Christian!”

He paused uncomfortably. “Well … so what?”

“So what?” Ardith bristled, suddenly. “Christians are hateful, they’ve driven us out of most all of England, you know!”

Jetta looked crestfallen. “Well, who says I have to renounce Woden? Why can’t I pray to the Christ, too?”

She grew annoyed. “Because they don’t let you. If you pick the Christ god, that’s it. It’s him and only him.”

Jetta shook his head. “That can’t be right.”

Wyne nodded. “It is, I’ve heard it from others. I knew a boy from Runnymede who said the same. You take the Christian god, you don’t get to keep the others.”

Jetta sighed. “Well, I don’t think I want to do that, but those stained glass windows are wonderful. I want to know how they do them. I want to learn. If I have to say their prayers and take their magic bath, how terrible could it be?”

Ardith didn’t know why she was so angry, but she became agitated at this thought. She felt as if Jetta was abandoning her. She had no romantic feeling for him, but she loved him much as a brother, and it was the thought of getting them home that had allowed her to remain focused and not lose heart through this arduous journey. “Don’t ever say that to me again,” she said crossly, and folded her arms. She stared out at the ship that bobbed on the water a little ways from shore.

Jetta frowned. “Why are you getting so upset?”

Ardith shook her head. “If I have to explain, then you won’t understand.”

The truth was that she resented herself for the new feelings that had arisen last night after her experience with Ase. The last thing she needed to hear was that Jetta was, in his own way, planning to desert them.

 

*******

 

Ase came to Bjorn, who was donning his kyrtill and looking at the ship with a critical eye.

“Bjorn Andvetsson,” Ase called, striding near him.

He smirked at her.“Gone all night.”

Ase smiled. “Yes.”

“Was she everything you hoped?”

Ase nodded, not wanting to discuss it further than that.“Yes.” Her head still rang with the sweet, high moans that Ardith made when she was lost in the dizziest heights of pleasure. “So, there doesn’t seem to be much here, although the girl and I encountered an old man and his adult daughter living in a shack at the edge of a cranberry bog on the other side of these woods.”

He took in the information without comment.

“So,” she asked, glancing around at the crew, who were beginning to wake, “where do we stand?”

Bjorn gestured out to the Nagelfar. “Well, I’m planning to go out there now and have a better look at the damage. From here, it doesn’t look so bad, but there looks to be a rip in the sail, and a couple of the shrouds look like they will need some repair as well.”

Ase squinted and peered out at the ship. Bjorn seemed to be correct; the standing rigging that held the mast up on either side did look to have a few damaged spots, and it would be unwise to set sail again until they’d been fixed.

“Well then,” she said breezily, “it’s a good thing that we kidnapped a carpenter.”

She gestured to the three Saxons, who were currently sitting in a bleak little row, not looking at each other. Ase wondered what had put them in such a sour mood.

Bjorn chuckled. “I suppose it is.” His eyes twinkled a little. “So, is Hilde right? Is there magic here?”

Ase gave an enigmatic shrug. “I do want to talk to her, actually.” She looked around the beach. Hilde was coming out from the trees, lacing her breeches. “There she is.”

Hilde broke into a jog when she saw Ase. “Where were you?”

Bjorn gave them both a nod and headed out toward the boat to see what needed to be done.

Ase smiled. She related the story of her evening to Hilde, who listened with her brow furrowed in concern.

“You know that it was Odin you met in that cranberry bog,” she declared.

Ase was incredulous. “Come now.”

“It has to have been. The cranberries, and what they did… he is known to meddle in the affairs of men. I am quite certain that what you experienced could only have been done with _seidr_ magic, and Odin is a master of _seidr_.”

“So the woman was–”

“Freyja, obviously,” Hilde finished impatiently. 

“Why would Odin and Freyja care to do such a thing for me and the girl? What difference could it make to them?”

Hilde shrugged. “I don’t know. But I told you there was seidr magic here, and now you have seen it for yourself.”

Something else nagged at Ase. For every boon from the gods, she was always made to pay with a pound of flesh. She did not like having to wonder what last night was going to end up costing her.

 

*******

 

Ardith was eventually put to work on a pot of _skause_ , while Wyne and Jetta were taken back out to the ship to begin repairs to the rigging. Jetta did more hauling than anything else, since Wyne was the one skilled with woodwork.By midday, after the Danes had all been fed, she was allowed to dole out two bowls of the stew for her two friends. They sat on the sand and ate silently with hammered tin spoons.

Ardith asked, “How go the repairs?”

Jetta grunted.

Wyne swallowed a mouthful of food and then answered. “Well enough. It’s a beautiful vessel. You don’t get to really appreciate it much when you’re pissing over the side of it.”

Ardith and Jetta both allowed themselves a small smile.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Ardith, but the woodworking all along the gunwale is very intricate. It isn’t just the dragon head that’s carved so elaborately, but there’s such detail all over it.”

She nodded. She had in fact taken note at how much craftsmanship had gone into the ship’s design.

“And not only that, but the construction itself is really unusual,” he went on. “It’s not built like English boats. There’s not a frame structure. It’s more like a snake. Just layer on layer, bolted together, end to end. It’s remarkable. That’s why it can twist on the waves the way it does.”

She nodded. She had never been on a large ship before, English or otherwise.

Ingrid came over as they were finishing and waved them to their feet to make the soggy trek back out to the boat. She yanked Ardith to her feet as well, indicating that she was to come along also.They made their way out through the waist-high water and resumed the work, with a particularly cantankerous Ingrid constantly over their shoulders and barking at them in Danish.

 _It’s not our fault this happened,_ Ardith wanted to say, but even if she’d known the Danish words, she supposed it was better that she didn’t.

Ardith spent her afternoon repairing the torn sail. She learned several more Danish words, and Brida at one point very patiently showed her how to tie a good knot so that she could suspend the sail the way she needed to in order to make sure it was mending properly.One more piece to the puzzle, she thought. One more step in the escape plan.

Even as she worked, she struggled to stop dwelling on the events of the night before, of the ways Ase had made her body feel. She struggled to shake off the lingering compassion for Ase’s stories of loss and pain and betrayal. She reminded herself that the Dane was still her captor, and that for all of Ase’s protestations of deep feeling, that Ardith was still her captive. Her slave, even. She didn’t much like how it felt to turn that over in her mind.

The repairs were completed by nightfall, but Ase decided to give the ship one more night to dry out a bit more. The decking planks were all pulled up at this point, to allow the cargo and inner hull to dry as much as possible.

Wyne and Jetta slept next to each other in the same spot Ardith had found them that morning. Ase and Hilde had some contentious back and forth. Ardith was rather hoping that Ase would try to bring her to the strange shack again and have her as she’d done the night before. But it appeared that Ase meant to sleep near her crew tonight, and Ardith had to admit she felt better about that anyway. After all, she’d felt guilty that her friends had slept tied to a tree on the beach while she had been in a bed, with a blanket, clasped against a warm, naked body.

She and Ase fell asleep with Ase’s cloak drawn over them, beside the fire. Ase held her tightly, murmured things very quietly in her ear, and fondled her softly, until she became aroused to the point that if Ase touched her any more, she would not be able to keep quiet. They fell asleep.

Ardith had a strange dream. In it, she saw herself and Ase, side by side, in yellow robes that she couldn’t identify. They wielded wooden staffs and stood in the midst of a raging battle. She smelled the blood, the horses, as if she were truly there. They were fighting side by side. Ase was struck, by what Ardith couldn’t tell, but she stood gaping for a moment at Ase, down on her knees, about to be struck again by some unseen foe.

The fox from her earlier dreams pranced up to her. It was the same fox, but it had many more tails, eight or nine, perhaps. “What are you waiting for?” it demanded. “Help her!”

She gasped a little and her eyes snapped open. The fire had almost completely died and the stars were thick across the sky. She was laying on her side, curled up against Ase, who was asleep on her back. She turned her head slowly, and saw Ingrid looming over them. She held a knife. Her dimly-lit face smiled at Ardith, and she put a finger to her lips.“Sssh.”

Ardith’s heart stopped beating.

Ingrid knelt down on the other side of Ase, clearly focused on her. Ardith lay still, internally panicking, wondering what to do.

Her fingers found the hilt of Ase’s dagger, sheathed in her belt.

_Do I lie here and let her kill Ase? And let her take my revenge away from me?_

_And then what happens to us with no Ase?_

Ardith slowly curled her fingers around the hilt of the dagger, watching Ingrid, waiting.

She noticed at this point that she had not breathed for several seconds. But then she saw Ingrid’s hand rise, preparing to stab down into Ase’s throat, and some instinct kicked in. She heard the fox’s voice in her head: _What are you waiting for?_ She gripped the dagger and sprang upon Ingrid with a wordless cry, as men often do when they are running into a battle: it is a sound equal parts terror and rage.

Ingrid should not have been surprised at Ardith’s mettle, but nevertheless, she was, and she found herself tumbling backwards onto the sand, shouting what Ardith guessed were obscenities. Ardith’s blood was screaming in her head now. She couldn’t have stopped what was happening if she had wanted to. Ase’s knife slashed across Ingrid’s throat, and a sheet of blood poured out. Ardith froze for a moment, suddenly comprehending what was happening.

Ingrid continued to struggle, and though she was in evident pain and losing blood quickly, she still attempted to sink her own knife into Ardith, making awful gurgling sounds as she did so.Ardith felt the bite of Ingrid’s knife edge in her upper arm, but she continued to stab at the woman’s throat, yelling incoherently as she did, until the sand beneath them was soaked with dark blood.

It could not have been more than twenty seconds that passed, but it felt like an eternity. She felt powerful arms grip her from behind and drag her off of Ingrid, and then a chorus of shouting in Danish as the crew woke. They would not understand, she feared. And then what?

 

*****

 

Ase sat up with a start to find Ingrid on her back in the sand next to her, and Ardith on top of her, slashing at her throat repeatedly. Ase’s hand went to her waist, but her knife wasn’t there. Ardith had it.

Harald swooped in just at that moment and dragged Ardith off of Ingrid. Ase shook her head. She looked up at Ardith in consternation, and then felt Ingrid’s wrist. Barely a flutter. She’d be gone in a moment.

“What the fuck just happened?” she demanded.

“We woke up,” Karsi said, “and found them like that.”

“Maybe the girl was overtaken by some dark magic,” someone else contributed.

Harald grunted. “Nothing like that,” he said. Ardith was still struggling in his arms. He tightened his grip on her. “Settle down,” he admonished, “or I can’t let go of you.”

Ase looked at him. “What did you see?”

Harald sighed. “I was on the other side, over there, but I saw everything.” He nodded to the opposite side of the fire. “Ingrid was about to kill you. The girl took your knife and jumped on her. She saved your life.”

Ase took a moment to take in what he’d said. “Ardith!”

Ardith still struggled against Harald’s grip.

“ _Min stjerne_ ,” she said more gently. She knew that Ardith understood that endearment.

Ardith stopped struggling, and stood there, chest heaving, face streaked with blood.

Ase went to her, stroked her cheek, and with her cloak, wiped the blood from the girl’s face. “And so it goes,” she murmured. “It appears I owe you my life.”

Bjorn was now standing beside them, looking at the whole tableau.

“Let her go, Harald,” Ase said.

Harald released Ardith, and she stumbled forward into Ase’s arms. Ase embraced her, kissed her matted hair, and then withdrew to look at Ingrid’s body.After brief discussion, it was determined that her body would be dealt with once day broke.

“With her sword?” Bjorn asked.

If she was buried with her sword, it would be a warrior’s funeral and she would go to Valhalla. Ase shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think I want to see her again.”

But her heart swelled. Ardith threw herself into danger to protect her. The girl loved her, she was sure of it now, even if it was too difficult for her to say.


	48. Blindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Retainers come once again. This time, trouble is unavoidable.

Myoge awoke when it was still dark. She’d dreamt dreams of longing; the images, the sensations weren’t clear, just the feeling of aching in ways that she had forgotten were possible.

When she was a teenager, she had made love to girls her age. Her parents didn’t mind; they expected it. After all, how was she to make a decent wife of herself and become versed in the art of lovemaking while still remaining chaste for her future husband? She had enjoyed those girls, some of them a great deal. In a way, the monastic life was a blessing for many reasons, because she had enjoyed one or two of those girls rather more than she expected she was supposed to.

She had shed all of her desires, including those, a very long time ago. And by her best reckoning, she could not fathom why she was struggling with such longing now. Shōshin had gotten her by the heart, by the spirit, by the loins. But how? And why?

 _It seems to me that she has confused your emotions since long before now,_ the roshi had said. 

Any moment now, Jōji would go dashing down the hall outside the door, ringing his little bell to rouse them all for the morning _zazen_ and breakfast. They would rise, and begin their day as if they had not gazed on one another’s nakedness last night, as if they had not kissed. They would have a day like any other. In anticipation of this, she wriggled out of her studiously fastened bedroll and stood, stretching her arms.

Shōshin was lying awake, watching her. They shared a long look, in which neither of them spoke. And then they were both standing, wrapping their robes and securing them with the same care that they ever did.

Surely enough, Jōji’s footsteps and bell approached a few moments later. Myoge tilted her head and listened. She heard an unusual urgency in them. She frowned, and pushed aside the shoji to see what was going on. 

“Wake!” he was yelling as he drew closer. “Wake, all of you!” Jōji never spoke while ringing the morning bell. Something was definitely wrong.

“Jōji!” Myoge called to him. “What is the matter?”

He was panting. He slowed only a little. “Retainers, coming up the path to the gate!”

“How many?” she demanded over the clanging of his little bell.

“A lot!” was all he said, and continued dashing down the corridor, ringing his bell.

They ran out into the corridor, where the other nuns on the floor were all stepping out of their rooms, rubbing their eyes.

Myoge ran down the corridor toward the covered walkway that wrapped around the outside of the dormitories. She was able to peer out over the curved, tiled roofs of the other buildings on the grounds, slick and black with a little overnight rainfall, to the narrow path that led up the mountainside through the cedars to the outer gate with its two simple stone columns.They would soon be moving through the main gate, which was covered overhead with a tiled roof, and contained statutes of the Buddha. Myoge’s eyes struggled to pick through the trees in the still-dark morning, but as the sky lightened, their movements were unmistakable. There had to be sixty or seventy.

“They’re mounted,” Shōshin commented beside her, squinting through the trees.

“Not all of them.” Myoge frowned. At this distance, in this darkness, it was hard to see.“Only a few. Too many horses would make it impossible for them to navigate the path up to the gates. Maybe ten are mounted. The rest are on foot.”

They jogged down the open corridor, and down the steps the open area in front of the _hattō_ , where the roshi gave lectures. Wataru was there with some of the other monks, passing out live steel to everyone.

“Wataru, why are we arming ourselves so?”

“Kōtetsu says the coming retainers wear Yorihime colors. Roshi wants us ready.”

Grimly, she took a katana from him and passed two wakizashi over to Shōshin.

Keiko wandered out into the front courtyard, fully dressed but still rubbing her eyes. “Auntie?” She drew closer. “What’s going on? What’s all the noise?” She glanced around. “Why is everyone arming?”

Myoge sighed. “Keiko, your uncle has seventy retainers coming here. They make their way up the Silent Path to the main gate even now.”

Keiko looked at Wataru.“Is there a naginata for me?”

He began to speak but Shōshin interrupted. “This is not your fight, little one. Let one of the nuns take you someplace safe.”

Keiko took great offense at this.“I will not hide myself in some closet while you fight for your lives!” She glanced between Myoge and her aunt. “I’m not a child any longer.” The flush in Keiko’s cheeks was visible even in the pre-dawn.

Myoge put her hands up in resignation.“Fine. I see you won’t be talked out of it. Just do your best to stay by me.” She looked at Wataru. “If we have a naginata for her, she may have one.”

He raised an eyebrow, but sent one of the younger postulants to go fetch one.

The nuns and monks were assembling now in the area where the main gate opened to the heart of the monastery grounds. Shōshin fretted and whispered to Myoge, “Why are you letting her fight?”

Myoge shrugged. “She’s a grown woman. She can make her own choices.”

Grief crinkled Shōshin’s brow just then. “She feels responsible for bringing them upon us.”

Myoge nodded.“She may well be.”

So they waited.

 

******

 

The roshi came striding calmly into the crowd. Half of the monastics had gathered in front and awaited his direction. Shōshin was struck by his ease. His bright eyes fixed upon her. “Do you imagine that they are here for you?”

She nodded, shame creeping into her face. “I will surrender myself to them–”

“You will do no such thing,” he interrupted. “You are a member of this order now, a Buddhist nun. The law is clear on this matter. They cannot have you.”

She took a breath, and centered herself before responding. “My husband only ever cared for the law when it suited him.”

The roshi understood. He glanced at Keiko and back at her. “And your niece chooses to fight as well?”

“We have already tried to talk her out of it.”

He cast an approving glance over his shoulder at Keiko, who was loosening up her wrist. “She has a stout heart.”He looked back to see where the ten men on horseback approached, with the sixty marching behind them.“Find your Buddha heart. Be prepared. Kill only if you must.”

She nodded. She thought, as the sun rose, of the sutra, _The rising of the sun is an act of compassion_. Compassion was the last thing she’d had, and the last thing she’d instilled in her men. She’d had to harden her heart in order to be the cruel enforcer that her husband had required of her, and she had taught her men likewise. Perhaps, she mused, just as she had once spoken cruelty to their hearts, she could speak compassion to them now. Wasn’t the art of war to win without having to fight?

The monks had assembled now into four groups, spread across the breadth of the receiving area.

“Now,” the roshi said in a strong, resonant voice, “would be a good moment for all of us to sit _zazen_.”

Without anyone questioning, not even Keiko, they all sat in the damp grass. The roshi sat in front of them, his back to them, facing the main gate. Keiko looked slightly confused, but followed along. Shōshin understood, though. One needed to face the enemy with perfect calm. And upon approach, the samurai would most likely take them for any group of meditating monks.

Shōshin sat, seeking the quiet of _zazen_ , seeking the sensation of becoming one with the world. As always, the sensation of Myoge’s luminous presence lingered at her side.Even now, at the edge of battle, at the edge of death, that love was all there was.

She heard the horses’ hooves, and that sound was what pulled her back. 

A familiar voice spoke. “Who is in charge here?” it demanded.

 _No,_ Shōshin thought.

The roshi stood. “I am the roshi. As you see, we are sitting for our morning _zazen_. What brings you here at so early an hour, _samurai_?”

“We come seeking Inouye Aguri.”

“There is no-one here by that name,” the roshi answered.

“That is a lie. We have followed her niece here. We know she’s here.”

Shōshin tilted her head to the side and glanced at Keiko, whose guilt was written all over her face.

“There is no-one here by that name,” the roshi repeated, remaining calm. He glanced at the large retinue. “So many men to capture a single woman? I would never presume to tell you how to do your job, but is this not excessive, _samurai_?”

She looked up and saw the man’s face. It was as she had thought. It was him. _Junichiro._

She stood.“Junichiro,” she called to him, her voice perfectly calm.

“You tried to kill me,” he sneered, “and you failed. It has taken me all this time to recover and become a warrior again. When it was discovered that you were here, Lord Noboru knew that I would be anxious to be the one to come bring you back.”

The roshi smiled. “I’m afraid, _samurai_ , that you have no right to her. She has become ordained as a nun of this order and as such, the law states that you cannot have her.”

Junichiro snorted. “That law is for girls who’ve run away from home trying to escape marriages. It’s not for honorless _ronin_ who betray their masters, engineer the escape of his enemies, and murder his men.” His eyes blazed. “You should have cut off my head, Inouye.”

She remained expressionless. “That is no longer my name.”

“I don’t care what your name is,” he snarled. “You’re coming back with me.”

She glanced at the roshi, who was remaining silent for the time being. “Junichiro, I trained you to act in the service of your _daimyo_ , with no regard to the rightness of what was being asked of you. That was how I myself served the man you still call your lord. But in finding zen, I have found the true way of the samurai; right action, and right intent. I failed you by failing to teach you those things. Without them, you will never truly be a leader of men.”

He seemed momentarily put off at the burst of naked sincerity from her. “Men! Ready!” he shouted without looking back.

“Ready, sir!” they shouted back.

He smirked at her with satisfaction. He didn’t understand. “You really believe this Zen nonsense, do you?”

She nodded. “I once thought the same of it, but in coming here, I have polished not only my sword, but my soul.” She regarded him with a smile.“Let’s avoid bloodshed and settle this between ourselves, like _samurai_?”

He laughed harshly. “You are not in a position to make deals. You come, or we take you forcibly. And your niece as well. And we’ll kill a few of these monks for good measure.”

She looked again at the roshi. He smiled at her. Then he smiled at Junichiro. “You may try,” he said simply.

Junichiro looked momentarily confused. It was not the response he had expected, clearly.

Lifting his voice, and with great clarity, the roshi called out, “ _Shitsumei!_ ”

_Blindness._

 

 

*****

 

 

The front doors burst open and a thick white cloud rolled forth from the front of the _hattō_ into the recieving yard. Those inside rushed forth after it, and for a few moments, everyone was blind.

While those out front had been dealing with Junichiro, the rest had been inside the hattō, igniting wet leaves and tinder fungus with all the doors and windows shut, filling the hall with thick white smoke. That smoke now poured forth onto the improvised field of battle.

Now, this was of course a difficulty for the samurai, who did not know the territory. But it was not a liability for the monastics, who knew the land well, and whose senses were open in a manner unmatched by Junichiro’s retinue.Shōshin had told her that her husband would send good warriors, but that he would specifically not choose any Buddhists so that they would not be uncomfortable if they had to harm the monastics or any of the icons. But this meant that he would also not send men who could fight well with their sight compromised.

The summer grasses gave beneath her feet. She could feel the dim shapes of the _samurai_ , who had drawn their swords, and were looking wildly around in the thick white smoke. She allowed her limbs to follow the path that her hearing had set. The nervous whuffling of a stallion, directly in her path, and the anxious breathing of its thick-set, heavily-armored rider. 

She knew that the others were doing the same: the ten of greatest skill among the zendo’s group had been charged with knocking the samurai from their horses and then striking the horses on the rumps to send them running away and out of the gate. Myoge could hear their footsteps, could sense them converging with their own equine targets, graceful and focused as snakes, weaving between the samurai in their battle stances who, unable to see, were waving their swords and lances at nothing.

She smiled faintly as she ran, ducking a thrusting lance, until she could tell from the sounds of horse and rider that she was at the appropriate distance, about four feet away.She bored her staff through the smoke and heard the thud of it striking something solid, and a cry of surprise and anger.She had landed the end of it against Junichiro’s helmeted head.

She heard his steel sing through the air as he attempted to cut the end off of her staff, but she listened to the sway of his breathing and felt the way the air moved as he tried to repay her blow, and she planted her feet, stuck the end of the staff into his chest, and despite his protests– “Bastards!”– flung him from his steed. 

She heard the thudding of hooves down the Silent Path, and thanked the various deities for helping her brothers and sisters with removing the other horses.The animals were, after all, innocent in the matter and would have doubtless rathered to be doing something besides carrying samurai to commit violence in a Buddhist monastery.But there was still the matter of Junichiro’s horse.

The smoke was beginning to clear and the samurai who had been squinting around in blind confusion were now lunging with more purpose at the dim shapes of the warriors in the receiving yard.Myoge planted the end of her staff into the dirt, vaulted into the saddle of Junichiro’s horse, and twirled her staff in the air.There was no need yet for the naked steel, she felt.

She squinted, coughing a little, and glanced through the smoke in the yard. The monastics were engaging the samurai. Many had drawn their steel. The diminutive Senkō was engaging a samurai who was easily two feet taller than herself. She, too, had opted to continue with her staff for now. Its six-foot length gave her more reach than her steel. Myoge observed her skill with it, the way it seemed to shrink and grow and bend in her hands, coiling and snapping, striking the samurai over and again. For once, she was glad the girl was here.

 

*****

 

The cacophony around Shōshin was familiar. The ringing of steel striking steel, the shouts, the oaths, and already, the smell of blood. She remembered this. It stirred her own blood as she remembered cutting down warriors on the rutted fields. She’d had no thought for the land then, but now, she found that she was struck remorse for subjecting it to this.

Her steel flashed through the smoke, and would from one moment to the next, find purchase in the leather of someone’s armor or strike against a raised blade in front of her.She surged through the blinding smoke at the horse nearest her. She had noted that its rider held his blade in his right hand, so she approached on his left, plunged her sword into the rider’s leg, and as he screamed in pain, she gripped his belt with her other hand, she tore him from the saddle. She heard the air rush from his body as he struck the ground with a loud grunt and a curse. She then dashed around to the front of the horse, grabbed its bridle, turned it in the direction of the Silent Path, and struck it on the rear.

The horse, whinnying in confusion, galloped toward the sound of the other retreating hooves.

The rider had recovered now, and as the smoke began to clear, Shōshin saw him stumbling toward her, blade raised, blood staining his hakama all the way down the leg.

“Yield!” he roared.

She laughed at him.

His blade was a fine one. Not yet bloodstained, the steel was luminous even through the fog. “You wield that beautiful blade in the service of an oppressor,” she told him.

“In the service of my _daimyo, ronin_!” he shot back.

She engaged him, aiming a cut at his left side. She struck effortlessly. It barely felt as though she was moving at all. She took a perfect slice of his kimono sleeve, and it dropped to the ground. He moved his blade to defend but she had already pulled back.

She had not realized until now how much better she had become since coming here.

He stared, dumbstruck, at how calm and still she stood. He roared and came at her again.She moved out of the way, stepping aside gracefully, and swung her blade backhanded to his other sleeve, and then struck it again on the return stroke.She had left him this time with a sleeve that hung from his arm in ribbons, and his eyes bulging out of his head in shock.

“You’re Osamu Murakami, aren’t you? You fought under me at Tedorigawa,” she remarked.

At this moment, she became aware, in her periphery, that Myoge had unhorsed Junichiro. She recognized the sounds of his cursing.

“Yes,” Murakami cried, hoarsely, “and now I am ashamed to have served such an honorless coward!”

She shook her head. There would be no reaching him.

At this moment, the white stallion emerged from the shifting smoke, with Myoge astride it, and trampled Murakami under its hooves. His agonized cries and the crunching of bone filled the air for a moment, then stopped.

Shōshin looked up at Myoge.Her heart leapt. Myoge was magnificent on that horse, her staff in hand. She rode like a _samurai_ who had been to war before. “I had him, you know.”

Myoge smiled back at her. “I know. Don’t worry. I left Junichiro for you.” She glanced past Shōshin’s shoulder through the smoke. “Ah, here he comes now!”

 

******

 

Shōshin had no desire to kill Junichiro. Her hope was to reach him, or to force him to retreat. But she knew neither was likely.

“INOUYE!” he roared, stalking toward her through what remained of the haze.In his hands were a weapon she had not seen in some time: a ball chain sickle.He clutched the sickle in his left hand, while the heavy ball at the end of the chain whizzed in circles in his right, held parallel to his body.

“New weapon,” she commented.

“You’re not the only who was changed by our fight at Ugomori’s.”

Six more samurai appeared behind him, flanking him, and then began to fan out.She backed up a few feet, toward the front door of the _hattō_ , and took a stance, one of relaxed power, almost nonchalant. She was aware of the battle that raged behind the samurai. Her eyes took in the way the heavy ball at the end of Junichiro’s chain continued to swing in circles that would dizzy the eye to stare at them. No, she decided. A tighter space would be better.

She turned and bolted through the front doors of the _hattō_ , and heard the crunch of wood as Junichiro’s heavy iron ball bit into the doorframe after her. She raced through the empty building, her zori sandals beating a path across the wood floor toward the rear door. She burst through and into the grey daylight, hearing the samurai trailing behind her.She held her blades at the ready. 

The rear door was narrower than the front, and the samurai could only exit two by two.As the first two came tearing out, swords raised, they were stopped short by two arrows that flew so close past Shōshin’s head that she felt the air and heard the whistle past her ear. They pierced the samurai’s bamboo armor with a satisfying thud.

She glanced up and saw Jōji, perched atop the wooden ledge that looked down on the back of the _hattō,_ his bow raised and a satisfied smile on his face. She gave him a nod of thanks.

Junichiro came running through next, roaring “Come on, come on!” at the soldiers in his wake.He almost tripped over the two fallen samurai on the stone path in front of the door. He cursed, and looked at Shōshin. He leapt over the two warriors and tried to edge over to the right where there was more space for him to maneuver with his ball and chain.

She leapt at him, but he blocked her right sword with his sickle and then swung the ball around.The chain wound itself around her left sword.Cursing, she pressed in close to him and ducked down, disengaged her right sword from the sickle and yanked the left one free of the chain. 

Four more samurai came clamoring in behind her.She could hear their footsteps.But Junichiro was proving to be a challenge that engaged her attention with little to spare. He would swing the ball, and then push back with the sickle, and she found herself in need of both swords and both hands simply to counter his every move.

An arrow whistled from the ledge.

“They have an archer, idiots!” Junichiro shouted. He swung the ball, and she jumped back a full eight feet, nearly crashing into another of the four samurai. Without even looking, she backhanded her left sword into him and moved forward again, trying to find a way past Junichiro’s swinging ball.She heard another of Jōji’s arrows whistle past and land with a thump. 

The lay of the land was tight here, with the back of the hattō on one side of them and the stone ledge that led up to the next tier of buildings on the other. Shōshin moved toward the stairs, reasoning that higher ground was her best choice.

Jōji was busy firing arrows at the other samurai as Shōshin backed up the steps, Junichiro following after. The ball chain and sickle was an irritating weapon; long reach as well as short, with two different types of deadly impact.He was now swinging the ball at her feet, attempting to cripple her with it. She knew just from looking that if it struck her ankle, that the joint would shatter irreparably. Nimbly, she leapt from one side of the steps to the other, as if skipping rope, trying to stay out of its path.

She was dimly aware as she reached the top of the stairs that Jōji had felled all but one of the six samurai who had accompanied Junichiro to pursue her.His helmet had been knocked off by one of the monk’s arrows, and he now came running up the steps while Jōji nocked another arrow. She knew that the samurai intended to push her into the path of Junichiro’s swinging ball.

She breathed deeply, and without ever taking her eyes from the swinging ball, she extended her left arm, sent her blade gliding toward the approaching samurai’s head, and then just as quickly drew her arm back. Before she had even completed her arc, his topknot had dropped inauspiciously to the ground. He paused in shock, but then another of Jōji’s arrows descended upon him, and he went tumbling backward down the steps, clutching at his chest.

Shōshin continued to move back up the steps.Junichiro changed the angle of his swing and the ball hurtled in circles over his head for a moment before smashing into a column that bore a small statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy.The statue tipped over and smashed onto the stones. 

An arrow whistled in and struck just where the statue had been a moment ago, and planted itself in the place on Junichiro’s waraji sandals where the thong split between the toes. He realized that ball chain sickle or no, he wasn’t about to fare well with an accurate archer and his former general at the same time. After a split second of consideration, he turned and dashed into the _sōdō_ , where they sat _zazen_.

Shōshin grimaced. She dearly wished not to spill blood in the _sōdō_.She gripped her swords and pursued him. 

 

*****

 

Myoge had leapt off the horse and sent it on its way.“Good boy,” she muttered to the white stallion, guided him toward the Silent Path and then slapped him on the rump. She had used him to excellent effect and trampled a number of Noboru’s soldiers beneath his hooves, but he did not ask to be here, and needed to be relieved of his job. The horse looked at her for half a moment, whuffled, nodded its head a few times, then whinnied and ran off.

She squinted and glanced around through the fog of battle. They had started this venture being outnumbered, but things seemed to be tilting in their favor. She’d seen Shōshin run through the _hattō_ , and though she didn’t like losing visual track of her, she knew that Jōji was on the ledge with his bow, and felt better about that. Still, she thought, she’d prefer to know that Shōshin had additional reinforcement. 

The roshi was very much engaged, battling three skilled samurai in the gardens leading to the rear of the Hall of Remembrance.

She spotted Senkō fifty feet away; the girl had knocked down a samurai with her staff and was preparing to strike with her steel, now that the warrior was on his back. “Senkō!”

Another pair of samurai were approaching Myoge now. She sighed. “You can’t be serious.”

Senkō glanced up.“I’ll be right there!”She plunged her blade into the samurai on the ground before her and started to run over.

“I’m fine!” Myoge called back, blocking the first of their blades and dancing out of their reach, light as a water lily. “But go follow Shōshin and see if she needs help!”

Senkō nodded and jogged off.

Myoge had a few minor scratches but was more tired than wounded. She knew that they had decreased the samurai’s numbers, yet there still seemed to be many. She took heart that they had not seemed to have lost any of the monks and nuns.

The two samurai were trained well, as Shōshin had probably trained them herself at some point. But Myoge was still able to move lightly enough to keep them chasing, and stay far enough ahead of their thoughts to use their movements against each other. One would plunge in as if he were a stinging bee, and she would move aside to send him stumbling past her and nearly strike his comrade instead. This went on for several minutes.

Then she heard the distinct, deep tone of the _obon sho_ bell. The fighting continued to rage around her, but she stopped. She looked quickly around the battlefield. There was no sign of Keiko. Myoge recalled showing her how to ring it. It had to be her, somehow.

The two samurai rushed at her, but she had lost patience and struck them both down with barely a thought. “I don’t have time for you right now,” she muttered, and broke into a run, through the open doors of the hattō, out the back, up the steps, and past the sōdō, through the gardens to where the _obon sho_ bell stood.Surely enough Keiko was up on the platform, stabbing downwards with her naginata at three young samurai who were attempting to pursue her up the steps.

Myoge shook her head. She dashed in behind them, and attacked the one at the rear, knocking off his helmet first, and then slipping her blade between the slats of his armor and striking just beside his heart. He fell.

The second samurai now turned to deal with her, leaving Keiko to contend with the other.“I told you to stay by me!” she shouted as her steel rang against the samurai’s.

“You were on a horse!” Keiko shouted back, twirling her naginata and striking the samurai’s head with the butt end, sending him stumbling back down the steps.

Myoge smiled. She laid into the samurai who faced her now.He was very good, better than the other two. “You think if you bring the girl back, your lord will reward you,” she said. “But isn’t having a clear conscience better than material reward?”

The samurai gave no answer, but blocked her strike and pressed in for one of his own. His steel glinted in the pale of rising morning.

“No?” She leapt to the side and struck at his waist backhanded. “What does he pay you? A thousand bushels a year?Two?”

He snarled.He barely managed to block her unexpected blow and her blade bit into the bamboo slats of his armor, nicking his waist.He winced in pain, but pulled himself out of her range and came back in for another strike. 

“Isn’t a soul free of stains worth more than five thousand bushels of rice?”

She could see his last cut coming as if it were from a mile away.

“No?” She smiled at this moment of sloppiness. “Alright then.” She glanced his blade aside and, as she had seen Aguri do, struck him on her return stroke, slashing down the middle of his chest. She could hear the cracking of the wood and the tearing of flesh and bone. He stumbled back, clutching at his broken armor. She shook her head at him. “I wonder if you think your death has honor.”

He spat, but said nothing, preferring to lay bleeding and glaring murderously at her.

She had no time to concern herself with how he felt about her. She nodded once to him. “Mine is the hand that ushers you on,” she said, genuinely sorry that she’d had to take his life. “I am sorry I could not help you.”

She spun around to find Keiko had managed to back the samurai down the steps and was working at him with a technique that involved using both ends of the naginata, twirling it back and forth as Myoge had shown her. Myoge felt a moment of pride, but she was anxious to find Shōshin, so she ran up behind the samurai and thrust her blade through his unsuspecting back.

She withdrew it, and murmured her apologies, and then looked up at Keiko.

“I had him, you know,” Keiko complained.

Myoge grinned. Those words sounded familiar. “I know. But we have other worries. Let’s see if we can find your aunt.”


	49. Taking What Cannot Be Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Astra's team discovers a new method to execute their plan. Alex presents J'onn with a problem and a solution and he doesn't like either one of them.

Non had his arms crossed and was studying Astra’s face. “I have continued to trust you, and your judgment, and you have not yet disappointed me. But this is now twice you’ve failed to either sway your niece to our side or terminate her. It worries me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “She is young, and headstrong. She needs someone to open her eyes for her.”

“As you opened your sister’s eyes?”

She leveled an icy stare at him.

“My apologies.” He adjusted his posture to a more conciliatory one. “I only mean that… the women of your family…”

“Choose your next words carefully,” Astra said sharply.

He smiled faintly. “…are incredibly strong-willed..”

She raised an eyebrow at him, smirking. “Then why do you feel it is worth your effort to try to push me to kill her without having tried all other approaches first?”

He shook his head, and moved closer to her, the lights of the control room flickering on both of their faces. “If you cannot bring yourself to do it, perhaps consider letting me?”

Her face hardened. “When I say it is time for that, it is time for that. And not until then.”

His brow furrowed. “You make me concerned that you are losing your stomach for our cause.”

She drew herself up and stepped into his space, nearly nose to nose with him. “I would rather die myself before allowing another world to be destroyed when I could have saved it. How dare you question my resolve?”

He stared back into her furious eyes, smiling his cool smile. “Then that is all I need to hear. And I am sorry for having questioned you.”

The lieutenant who was working at the surveillance station, awkwardly listening to their prickly back and forth now cleared his throat. “General, this may interest you.”

Astra stepped back a little and peered around Non at the lieutenant. She had truly almost forgotten he was there.“What is it, Waji?”

“The, uh, the human that you had me tag and track?”

“Yes?”

“Well, she’s gone into this building, and I think it may actually be interesting to us.”

She moved past Non and walked to the station where he sat.

“The human you had him track?” Non questioned.

“Yes, yes.” She gave a dismissive wave. “What’s interesting about it?”

“Well,” he said slowly, “you know that the new Myriad code is more or less what we need it to be at this point in order to embed itself and give us control of the humans’ brains and nervous systems, and it’s just a means of dispersal that’s been the issue, right? Fort Rozz’s own communications arrays are good for long distances, not broad dissemination.”

“Yes?”

“Well, this place…”He adjusted something, zoomed in and down, and pulled it up on the viewers. She saw rows of large satellite dishes on the roof of the building.

“Yes,” Non said, “but there are many satellite dishes on Earth, none of them are useful to us.”

“Right,” Waji agreed, “because the signal protocols are too primitive. But…”His fingers flew over a glowing panel near his right hand. “…look at these readings.”

Non and Astra stared for a moment at the readings Waji had brought up. She pointed at a line that rippled across the screen like a sine wave. “That looks like a 773 Terahertz signal.”

Waji nodded. “It’s close enough.Distance and breadth of dispersal. It’s the low end of what would work for us, but we could make it work without too much alteration to the code. It’s encrypted, of course, but I’d bet it’s easy enough to crack.”

“And,” Astra pressed, feeling smug, “it was the human that led you here.”

“Yes, General.”

Non looked like he was swallowing his words and that they tasted sour. “Forgive me for doubting you, General. As usual, your instincts are excellent.”

 

*******

 

J’onn sighed. “Alex, I really don’t like doing this, you know that.”

Her brows knitted together. She had been making her case with him for over half an hour. She wanted it done. He didn’t want to do it.

“I know, J’onn, but clearly this is an act of aggression, don’t you agree?”

He shook his head. “How can you be so sure? How do you know she had anything to do with it at all? I’m not aware of Kryptonians having any talent of that kind.”

Alex huffed. She stood up. “J’onn, please. I don’t know how she did it, but these are things that don’t belong there. And I’m afraid that they may … compromise me.”

He frowned.

She was desperate.“Please, just take a look. You’ll be able to see the stuff that doesn’t belong.”

“How?”

“Because for one thing, I’m not, nor have I ever been, a Japanese woman.”

J’onn threw up his hands in concession. “You have a point, there.”

Alex put a hand up. “Um, look … before you go poking around in there… you should just know… some of it is kind of, uh … NC-17.”

He chuckled.

“And … you know … even though it doesn’t _technically_ belong to me…”

“I know how humans procreate, Alex.”

She took a breath, and then shut her mouth. It was better if she just let him look for himself.She closed her eyes and felt the unsettling presence of another mind inside her own.

J’onn’s people had the gift of telepathy, more specifically, mind-reading and memory-erasing. J’onn was never fond of using it. “Your father would be rolling over in his grave if he knew I was poking around inside your head,” he grumbled.

“Not if you told him why.”

“Pipe down, you’re distracting me.”

“Sorry.”

After a few silent minutes, she opened her eyes.He was looking at her with concern. “Alex,” he began carefully, “I do agree that there are some things in there that don’t … seem to line up quite right. But are you… absolutely sure that they don’t belong to you?”

“Positive.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this when we were in de-con?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just… it sounded too crazy. I really needed a minute to just… take it all in.”

He sighed heavily and hooked his hands behind his head, turning over the situation. “You know, there’s a spiritual dimension to this that you may not have considered–”

“I have,” she insisted. “I even talked to my roshi about it.”

He sighed.“And he said it was a good idea to do this?”

She snorted. “He doesn’t give directions that way. No, he said that I needed to consider whether the stuff in my head will keep me from dharma, and if I find myself obsessing about it, that I should just forget it.”

“Is it?”

“They’re not my memories. You know they’re not. And I think we can agree that some of what’s in them could affect my ability to do my job.”

He nodded. “I agree, it could. But I’d prefer you rely on your Zen discipline to reckon with that. What if she does it again? I don’t want to keep going in and scrambling your brain every time you have a fight with Astra. And what if the information in those memories is valuable?”

“You saw them,” she pressed. “What value could fake memories of … of I don’t even know what… history… possibly have?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I just feel it would be premature to erase it.”

Alex sighed. “You already saw me hesitate once. What if it happens again at a moment where we can’t afford for me to do it?”

He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.

“I know you hate it, but you know I’m right.”

J’onn sighed again. “Alright. This may take some time. I want to be careful because I don’t want to accidentally take anything that you might need.”

She nodded. “Alright. So what will I remember?”

He drummed his fingers on the table. “You’ll remember that something was put in your head, so you can use appropriate caution when you deal with her. But you won’t remember any of what it was.”

“Sounds good.”

“You sure you want me to take that one of the Northern Lights off the coast of Denmark? It’s nice.”

She nodded grimly. “Take it all.”

 

******

 

A few hours later, Alex was at home, in quiet meditation.

She had been ever since J’onn had finished the procedure. It was strange. She didn’t feel as though anything was off. It didn’t seem as if anything was missing. When she thought back on her encounter with Astra, all she remembered was her kneeling down, saying, “I’m here to save you,” and then the touch of Astra’s fingertips on her cheek. And then Astra being swept away from her by the red and blue blur that was Kara.

Even that was enough to unsettle her, though. She remembered saying to J’onn, “There are things in there that could compromise me.”

She remembered hesitating to strike, but couldn’t remember why.

The more she lingered on it, the more she felt unsettled. She had to remind herself to trust her own judgment, to trust that if she had been implanted with images of something that would hinder her ability to do what was needed, that this was what she needed.

Still it was strange to know that something was missing. J’onn had been so surgical that if she hadn’t known that he was taking something, she might not know anything was gone.

So, wrangling with this peculiarity, she had gone home, and was now sitting on her cushion in the living room, breathing and seeking the calm afforded her by meditation.But Zen was elusive tonight; her mind felt like it was chasing its missing pieces.

A knock came on the door roughly half an hour into this exercise. It pushed open a moment later, and Kara’s face peered around the edge of the door.“Hey, Alex.”

Alex smiled. “Hey. You don’t need to knock, you know.”

Kara shrugged and came in, closing the door behind her. “Well, you know. Just didn’t want to interrupt in case you had a gentleman caller.”

Alex snorted. “I don’t have any kind of callers these days. I’m starting to think maybe callers aren’t my thing.”

Kara laughed awkwardly, not seeming to know what to do with this information. At this moment, she processed that Alex was sitting on her cushion. “Oh, you were trying to sit. I’m sorry.I’ll just–”

Alex put a hand up.“No no, don’t even worry about it. It wasn’t going very well anyway.”

Kara frowned. “Why’s that?”

Alex hesitated. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want to share what she had asked J’onn to do. “Just having trouble turning my brain off.”

Kara put a hand in the air. “Ugh, preach. I can never shut my brain off. What’s on your mind?”

Alex turned her mind to more practical matters.“Well, clearly we need to find where they’re hiding Fort Rozz.”

“Uh huh.” Kara opened the fridge and helped herself to a log of fresh mozzarella.

“Make sure you leave me some,” Alex warned, pre-emptively reminding Kara not to eat her out of house and home. “Anyway,” she continued, “we’ve been working on it but I’m wondering if we shouldn’t get another brain on this.”

Kara wandered back over, munching thoughtfully on the cheese. “Like who?”

Alex sighed. “I hate it, but Max Lord is probably the guy for it.”

Kara’s brow knit in consternation. “Seriously?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah. Seriously. Like I said, I hate it, but I seriously doubt we’ve seen the last of Astra and her people. It would be great to figure out where they’re hiding and … you know…”

Kara clearly didn’t like where the conversation was heading. She clearly had conflicts about fighting her own family, particularly when she thought she was the last of her line just days before. 

“You know we have to,” Alex entreated.

Kara nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”

Kara stayed for a late night snack and half of Galaxy Quest, and then headed home because she had her civilian job early the next morning.

Alex, having settled the question of whether she was going to reach out to Max about tracking down Fort Rozz, felt less distracted than earlier, and was able to sit down and lose herself in meditation. This time, she succeeded. She felt herself fall away, felt herself able to become part of the luminous emptiness, and emerged some while later with a feeling of gratitude.

She had a dream that night about someone making love to her. She was aware of a flickering light, like a small candle, and felt something rough under her back, like grass or straw, and someone’s very soft, careful mouth working down her skin. It was a peculiar mix of some parts feeling murky and some feeling so vivid and raw she almost thought it was really happening. But she forgot it when she woke up. She had too many other things to think about.

 

 

*** 

 

 

“There is only one way to do this,” Astra decided firmly.

Non glanced up from his tablet, where he was frowning over some lines of Myriad code.“Do what?”

“Get a proper audience with my niece.”

He sighed. “Not this again.”

She was scornful. “We ambushed her. Of course she did not wish to talk.”

He shook his head. “What do you mean to do?”

“Reveal myself to the humans.”

He looked slightly queasy at this.“That is a terrible idea.”

“It is my idea,” she retorted. “And if you dislike it, you are sure to hate what comes after it.”


	50. Go Forth, Warrior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ardith attends her first Viking funeral.

Ase had many questions to answer.Would Ingrid be burned or buried? What grave goods would she be given? And would she be buried with her sword?

To die in the middle of an act of mutiny deserved little to no honor in Ase’s mind. She took Ardith by the hand and brought her to the water’s edge, and gently splashed cold water on her face to wash the blood off. An hour later, she was still shaking. Ase wished that she could speak to her and be understood. “You did well, my brave one,” she told her, soothing her. She kept the girl close by her side.

There was a little more ale in the barrel that the crew had brought ashore, so she gave Ardith some to calm her nerves, and then drank some herself, staring at the horizon and waiting for the sky to lighten so that they could have some adequate light to do their work by.

Harald approached her a short while later as she sat with Ardith on the felled tree, holding her close. He looked at the two of them for a while, without saying anything.

Finally, Ase looked up. “You spoke for my woman.”

He nodded. “Does it surprise you?”

“A little.”

His face split into something closer to a grimace than a smile. “I would have done the same as she did, in her position.” The pain in his expression made clear that he understood he never would be.

“Did you know Ingrid meant to murder me?”

He shrugged. “She grumbled of mutiny, yes. But I assumed it was like my mutiny.”

“She would do something stupid, I would stab her, and then it would be over?”

He chuckled. “Yes.”He sighed heavily. “I never thought she would be a greater fool than I.”

She considered him for a moment. “So when you awoke, what did you see?”

“I opened my eyes, and she was hunched over you. It was dark, you understand, and I couldn’t see very well. Then I saw her hand come up, and the blade in it, and then as I took a breath to call out, your Saxon was already leaping upon her. She was savage and desperate. It was…” He paused, looking at Ardith with something bordering on admiration. “…impressive. I see now what you saw in her.”

She smiled faintly. After dropping an absent kiss on Ardith’s head, she looked up at Harald. “So, in your opinion, Harald, what should I do with the bitch? I’m within my rights to burn the body and leave the ashes to the wind, or bury it with not so much as a grave coin, am I not?”

She wasn’t sure why she wanted Harald’s opinion. She was torn on the matter, she supposed. Ingrid had been one of the finest sailors Ase had ever ridden the seas with. She had been ruthless and bloodthirsty in battle. Though they had not much liked one another, Ase had always had a powerful respect for Ingrid, which she had always believed was mutual.

He nodded. “It’s up to you, of course.”

“But what would you do, were you in my position?”

He hesitated. “I will tell you something she said to me, and then I suppose you can make the decision yourself.”

Ase waved him on.

“She liked to complain, as you know. She told me once that she felt you were getting sloppy because of the girl. She said your love for her had made you soft in the head, and that it was the worst kind of shame. She hated you, but she acknowledged you as the fiercest and most clever jarl she had ever seen. She said it was a terrible thing in the eyes of the gods themselves for one so great to end their rule as a simpering girl, stuck on winning the heart of a younger woman who hated her. It was repulsive to her, but it was because she had seen you as a great woman before that, and now she saw you falling prey to the same weaknesses that so disgusted and annoyed her in men.”

Ase felt anger rise up in her, felt her cheeks flush with it and her bones sear with it. She had been too shocked and unmoored when she had first awoken to find Harald dragging Ardith off of Ingrid in a spray of blood. She had not had the capacity for anger. Now, she was fully consumed with it. But it was a wild beast that could find nothing to sink its fangs into. Ingrid was already dead.

She took a moment to let it subside, drinking and staring at Harald in the dark that was, by a hair at at time, becoming lighter. She dug her boot heels into the sand.

Ingrid had regarded her as great, and had tried to kill her because she couldn’t stand the sight of her becoming “less than”.It was wrongheaded, and mutinous, but some part of Ase also felt that it was also born from a place of respect. 

“And you, Harald? Did you agree with her? Am I becoming soft in the head, and sloppy?”

He shrugged. “I’m only a fucking fool. Why are you asking me?”

They held a stare for a moment, and then Harald walked away.

Ardith had stopped shaking.She was glancing around now, taking in the measure of the scene. Her friends were awake, and she seemed to be thinking about going to speak with them.

The camp was restive, everyone muttering to one another quietly while they waited for daylight. Karsi and one of the other young oarsmen were playing Hnefatafl by the light of a torch stuck in the sand. She could hear the scrape of the pieces against the wooden board, punctuated by the occasional curse as one of them lost a piece or found their king in trouble.

Bjorn wandered over. “What have you decided?”

Ase looked up at him. “We burn the body. Bury the ashes with some decent grave goods. Surely we have some clean clothes and some suitable treasures that can be buried with her so that she will go into the next life properly prepared.”

He nodded, and then after a moment’s hesitation, asked, “And her sword?”

“No sword. I have thought about it, and I don’t wish to see her in Valhalla. She tried to murder me in my sleep, like a dog, instead of challenging me like a warrior. If I had defeated her in a contest, it would be different. But this attempt on my life was the way softer women do it, not the way a shield maiden of Fjollum does it.”

Bjorn nodded. He glanced up at the sky. “It will be light enough soon. I will ask Hilde to prepare the grave goods. The men and I will start the pyre. We’ll get the Saxon boys to chop more wood.”

“You see?” Ase joked wearily. “They are proving useful after all.”

“I suppose we’ll see how useful once we get out to sea and see whether their repairs hold.” 

 

*****

 

Ardith, after a cup of ale, extracted herself from Ase’s arms and walked over to her friends, who were looking blearily at her, and at the dark shape of Ingrid’s body lying on the sand.

Jetta was the first to speak. “What happened? I thought for sure they were going to have your head when I woke up and saw Harald dragging you off of Ingrid, and all the blood.”

She tilted her head to one side and then the other, grimacing as she tried fruitlessly to get the muscles in her shoulders to loosen.To cut someone down in the heat of battle was one thing, but to simply leap on a person and open their throat… well, it was a different matter. There was a queer sort of intimacy to it. She hadn’t quite expected it.

“Yes, well, I killed her alright.”

“But why?” Wyne pressed.

She sat down on the log beside them. “I was asleep beside Ase, and I woke in the night to find Ingrid standing over us with a knife out. Ase was still asleep. I didn’t know what her intention was, but she seemed bent to kill us.”

“Both of you?” Jetta asked skeptically.

Ardith shrugged, her tone becoming defensive. “How should I know? Wake up with someone hunched over you with a knife and tell me whether you’re going to spend a lot of time wondering whether they’re coming for you or the person sleeping next to you.”

Jetta grunted.

“Anyway, I don’t know what happened, it was just… I acted on instinct. My hand went to Ase’s waist and found her dagger, and I jumped on her and…” She trailed off. She still smelled the thick, sticky blood, hot and dark on her fingers.“…opened her throat.”

They were silent for a long, awkward moment. “How come they haven’t killed you yet?” Jetta asked.

Ardith shrugged. “I don’t know. I think Harald saw everything. Or someone did. Otherwise I’d be trussed up by now, if not dead.”

“Are you sure you aren’t just getting special treatment because you’re Ase’s woman?”

Ardith grew frustrated. She didn’t like Jetta’s tone. “Well, why don’t you learn some Danish yourself and then you can tell me?”

Wyne cleared his throat and tried to soothe the mood. “Well, there’s a lot we don’t know. Ardith, what exactly are you, in her mind? Do you even know?”

Ardith hesitated.She shrugged. “She calls me ‘her star’.”

“Star?”

“Yes. _Min stjerne_. I know it means ‘my star’. A pet name, I suppose.”

Wyne nodded thoughtfully. “She treats you kindly, is gentle with you, calls you endearments. She wants to bed you, it’s clear, but wants for you to accept it.”

“A slave is still a slave,” Ardith responded archly, “whether they’ve consented to the slavery or not.” She didn’t volunteer that Ase had already bedded her, or that it was something that she rather wanted to happen again. It didn’t matter to the conversation, she decided.

“Have you?” Jetta asked bluntly.

Ardith bristled. “When there is something you need to know, I will tell you.”

They drank in silence a little while longer. Ardith didn’t like the implications in Jetta’s questioning.In truth, the conflict within herself had only intensified after having killed Ingrid. It was self preservation, she told herself, a matter of sticking with the devil she knew. She didn’t know, however, if this was strictly so.

 

*****

 

By early morning, the crew had built the pyre. Ingrid’s body had been washed and dressed in clean clothes, and Hilde had made a small pile of grave goods; a gold coin, some salted meats, a tin cup and a small flask of mead. Ase nodded with approval, and then took the pile of cloth from Hilde and gestured for Ardith to come with her.

She took her by the hand, and knowing that she preferred some privacy, led her off into the trees. The girl looked slightly confused.Ase tugged at the girl’s _kyrtill_ , which was bloodstained and torn after her misadventures. Ardith understood, and slipped it over her head, then dropped it to the ground. Ase admired her bare torso for a moment, then placed a new one in her hands; a green one, clean and dry, and with white and yellow stitching around the wrists and neck.Ardith wriggled into it, and stood back, waiting for Ase’s approval.

Ase was mildly frustrated that she couldn’t ask Ardith what had moved her to spring upon Ingrid so fiercely.“You killed her,” she explained, knowing it was mostly pointless to explain. “I think it’s right that you should participate in the death service, and I can’t have you standing at her funeral in the torn, bloody clothes you wore when you killed her.”

Ardith shrugged, and tugged at the garment to make certain of its fit. Ase nodded with satisfaction, and took Ardith’s hand and led her back to the beach.

The pyre sat awaiting a flame, and the crew milled around.Karsi had coaxed someone else into another round of Hnefatafl and they played mostly without comment, waiting for Ase’s orders. The Saxon lads were sitting on a pair of stones, munching on some smoked meat that Brida had given them. Ase guided Ardith over to the felled tree they had sat on earlier, and motioned for to sit. Once she had, Ase knelt down, and turned Ardith’s body so that she was straddling the tree. Then Ase sat down behind her, and took Ardith’s long, messy plait in hand.

She felt the girl stiffen for a moment, but she made soft, reassuring sounds. And then she untangled Ardith’s hair, and combed all of the fallen leaves and grit out of it with a wooden comb.Ase dug her fingers down into her scalp and then down the full length of her dark waves. Then she combed the top over to the left side, took the hair on the right, and combed it through once.With the comb, she separated a third of it, and rested that hank of hair in the hollow where her iron thumb extended out from the hand. She separated another hank, and leaned forward, and held that between her lips. Then she laid down the comb, and with her hand free, she wound that lock first around the one resting over her iron thumb, then over the one in her mouth.

She was deft with her fingers, but it was still a slow process. Winding the braid, pinning it between her lips, winding it again. As she worked, she breathed the salty sea-air scent of Ardith’s hair, and in the moments where she released the lock of hair between her lips to wind it into the braid, she indulged in a small kiss to the girl’s scalp where it was exposed by the way that Ase had pushed the locks of hair apart.

After a few minutes, Ardith seemed to finally relax into it, and her breathing slowed and became softer. By the time Ase had completed the first braid that ran down the right side of her head, Ardith was leaning into her, automatically responding to commands to move her head this way or that; a little nuzzle against her jaw to tell her she need to tilt to the left, a soft nip on her ear to bring her back the other way.The sun continued to rise.

At one point, Hungerd came and offered to help, but Ase dismissed her.This had become a tender, intimate activity. She was making a Dane of her woman. No-one else had the right to that task.

When it was all done, morning was in full bloom, the sky was blue, the clouds white and ragged as the cliffs of the Doverstraat, and Ardith had two braids running down each side of her head and one large one that began at the middle of her crown and ran in a thick, lovely rope down her back.Ase stood up, and pulled Ardith to her feet. It was so beautiful a sight, Ase could only stare for a moment before catching her mouth in a long, soft kiss.

Without looking away from Ardith, Ase called, “Bjorn, we can begin!”

Ingrid’s body had been lain atop the hasty pyre, and two of the men touched lit torches to the kindling at the base of it.The flames crept up. Ardith stood staring. Ase would have loved to ask her what she was thinking at that moment.

Ase spoke to the assembled.

“This is never a pleasant task, to send one of our own on to the next life. It is made more difficult due to the circumstances of Ingrid’s death.”She looked at the faces of the crew, some blank, some skeptical, some morose. “I never liked Ingrid. It appears that the feeling was mutual.” Some of the crew allowed themselves a chuckle at that. “She was the greatest sailor I have ever known. She was a boon to every battle. Her sword, Sköfnung, was polished with the blood of her enemies. She was a complainer, she was arrogant, and she died a mutineer. We will not be having a glorious funeral for her. Her ashes will not be buried with Sköfnung. That is the price for her mutiny. No Valahalla. But out of respect for her prowess as a sailor and fighter, I will not send her to the grave with nothing. She will go with coin, food, mead, and the knife she tried to kill me with when she crept up on me like a jackal in the night.”

They listened, staring intently.

“Know this, my people. I am not without mercy. I am not without respect for all of your brave deeds. But if any of you tries to do what she did, you will never see Valhalla. My woman will open your throat, and I will burn your corpses and leave your ashes to the wind.” 

Their faces all paled a shade at this.

Ase took a cloth bundle that she had been carrying, and handed it to Ardith. Ardith looked confused, but unwrapped it.Inside was Sköfnung, brilliantly polished, with a thick-ribbed hilt and heavy crosspiece. Ardith looked up at her in confusion.

“It’s yours now.”

She gave Ardith a belt and scabbard, and watched as she donned it, slowly and with a slightly bewildered look.

“This sword was Ingrid’s. She does not deserve to take this fine blade to Valhalla. So I give it to you, the one who killed her in my defense.” She smiled with satisfaction. In her new _kyrtill_ , with her hair in braids, and a proper Danish weapon at her waist, Ardith looked like a real shield maiden. She looked like a proper mate for someone like Ase.

She took Ardith’s hand, and led her over to the pyre. “You need to release her completely,” she explained. “You must acknowledge your role.”

Ardith looked blankly at her.

Ase gazed at the roaring fire, her nose stinging with the smell of burning flesh. “You say, Mine is the hand that ushered you on. Go forth, warrior. Your time is here is done.”

Ardith squinted at her through the smoke.

Ase repeated each part again slowly.“Mine is the hand that ushered you on.”

Ardith repeated it awkwardly.

“Go forth, warrior.”

“Go forth, warrior.”

“Your time here is done.”

“Your time here is done.”

And then they waited for the fire to burn out so they could bury the ashes with the grave goods.

Hilde approached as they stood before the crackling flames. “Ase, are you sure it’s wise to give Sköfnung to your woman?”

Ase frowned. “Why not? You don’t think she has proven she can be trusted?”

Hilde looked uncomfortable. “It isn’t that. It’s…There’s too much magic here. Too many unpredictable things. The sword may carry something you don’t want.”

Ase shrugged. “She’s earned a sword. Sköfnung is a good one.”

Hilde sighed. “If you insist.”

 

*****

 

Ardith, at long last, separated herself from Ase’s side. It seemed that they weren’t performing any other ceremonies while the fire burned. Given the circumstances of Ingrid’s death, it seemed generous to give her any burial at all, Ardith supposed.

It had not been so long before she stood before the burning pyre of her father’s funeral and spoken to the people of Haedwalle, before Ase and her crew descended upon them. She felt as though a lifetime had passed since that night.

She walked over to check on her friends.Wyne and Jetta looked up, eyes wide and looking stricken.

“You look like a Dane,” Wyne said in a small voice. “If I didn’t know it was you…” He looked geniunely rattled at the sight of her.

She smiled and knelt down to speak with them. “Don’t worry, lads. It’s still me. I still mean to kill her and make our escape. We simply do what we must.”

Jetta, who had been churlish lately, simply looked unnerved. He nodded dumbly. “All right. We trust you, don’t we, Wyne?”

She shook her head. “Don’t look so glum, you two. We’ll be on our way soon enough!” She leaned in to give them a friendly, reassuring embrace.

They both leaned against her the best they could, given how they were restrained.

But Wyne whispered in her ear:

“But what _is_ she to you?”


	51. Those Who Cannot Stand For Themselves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle of the zendo ends. Shōshin makes a sacrifice. Myoge rediscovers her old rebellious nature.

The _sōdō_ was shrouded in half-dark within. Its emptiness was disquieting. Shōshin was only accustomed to being in it when it was full of others, sitting _zazen_. The floorboards creaked beneath her _zori_ as she entered the large, open space. Junichiro stood in front of the Buddha, in a muscular stance, with the ball dangling ominously at the end of a short length of chain in his left hand, and the sickle held aloft in his right.

He was daring her to come at him where he stood, right before the Buddha.

Shōshin walked toward him, an avatar of calm, even as she could hear the sounds of battle outside, the ringing of steel and the shouts and cries of nun and monk and samurai.She held her swords at either side, steadying her breathing.She stopped when she was ten feet away, looked past him at the Buddha, and bowed.

“Even now?” he demanded. “Even now you bow to the Buddha? I spit on on the Buddha!” He spat on the floor in front of himself.

She shrugged. “You spit. I bow. We will see which of us benefits more from it in the end.”

He shook his head. “You were once great. What happened to you?”

“There are bigger things than greatness.”

He looked puzzled by this. “You make no sense.” He began swinging his ball beside him, in parallel with his body, and stepped forward.

She took a stance now, inviting him to engage.

“What did Noboru promise you for my delivery? My old command? How many thousands of bushels? Marriage to one of his concubines’ daughters?” she wondered.

“What does it matter? Avenging myself is payment enough!” He swung the ball, sent it hurtling towards her.

She ducked, blocked as the sickle was swiping at her a moment later. She leapt back a few feet. “You have nothing to avenge!” she responded. “You took an honorable defeat!”

He gave the chain more slack, and swung the ball at her again. She leapt back a few more feet. She slipped to the left and blocked a strike from the sickle, and tried to work in a sting with her other hand. But he was too quick, and he slipped away from her. Her blade found only air.

“You’re quicker than you used to be,” she panted.

“Maybe you’re just getting old, _sensei_ ,” he shot back.

The ball hurtled toward her again, and this time, the chain wrapped itself around her wrist. She tugged at it ineffectually, then planted her feet while she tried to unravel herself. Junichiro was slowly reeling her in, a step at a time. She could let go of her sword, but then she would be fighting this weapon with only one blade, a disadvantage she did not feel she could afford.

She suddenly stopped resisting his pull, and ran toward him, which slackened the chain, and then she was able to pull her sword from its coiled links. Before she could get too close to him, though, his sickle was raised again, and her attack was blocked. And then the ball was swinging around again, and she had to duck to get out of its way. It was an exhausting weapon to face.

She realized that the only way to beat it was to get close enough to him that he could not make sufficient use of the ball. That was, of course, the difficult part.

The ball came hurtling toward her again, and this time, she ducked low, and charged in towards Junichiro, ready with her left hand to block his sickle attack, and praying to Konnon and Amaterasu and the Buddha and whoever else she could think of, that she would reach him before he was able to wind up his ball to strike again.

He took up a shorter length of chain and swung the ball around, wrapping it around her sword again. This time, she let go of the weapon and tackled him, flinging them both to the ground with a guttural cry. He hit the dirt with a loud release of air and a cry of pain. His right hand, still bearing the sickle, came up from below, and the sickle bit once into her thigh before she plunged her shortsword into his shoulder and he gave another angry, gurgling scream.

Just now, Senkō burst through the door, panting.“Shōshin!” she cried. “I’m here to help you!”

Shōshin barely glanced at her.She was focused on Junichiro. She did not want to relive taking his life. Yet she was not left with many alternatives. She had judged him correctly the first time. He would go to his own death rather than fail the mission his _daimyo_ had given him. “I’m fine!” she called back. “Help the others.”

Three more sets of footsteps echoed in the empty sōdō, as three more samurai entered, flanking Senkō.

Junichiro spat a little blood and began to chuckle. “You have a new problem.”

Shōshin glanced up. Two of the samurai had swords drawn, but this was not what worried her. Senkō was a capable fighter. The third one held a musket, which was leveled at the back of Senkō’s head.

Shōshin bit down on a curse. There was no way she could get there faster than a musket shot. Her options were clear. She could let them do what they wished with Senkō, and continue to fight Junichiro. She was sure that she had figured out how to defeat his weapon and that the fight would not last much longer. With Junichiro taken down, the head would be off the dragon, so to speak. One person was not so much to sacrifice for the defeat of Noboru’s retinue, was it?

Yes, she decided. It was.

“Sir, shall I kill her?”

Junichiro smirked up at Shōshin. “No, not yet.”He smirked at Shōshin. “What do you think, Inouye? Shall I spare her life in exchange for your surrender?”

She looked at Senkō’s young face, stoic, seemingly nonchalant. But she knew the girl still valued her own life. A heavy breath in, and then out, and she rose up off of Junichiro, and threw her swords to the ground. “Fine. You have me. Now let her go.”

Junichiro’s smile spread wider across his face as he relished his victory. “You know, I could still kill her, just to punish you for making my job so difficult.”

Shōshin narrowed her eyes at him. “And you would lecture me about honor,” she snorted.

The remark touched a nerve. He gave a disgusted wave with his sickle. “Fine,” he grunted. “We have what we came for. Shoot her in the shoulder and let’s go home.”

 

******

 

Myoge and Keiko were running through the garden near the _obon sho_ bell, but froze as they heard a single crack of a musket shot. A moment later, they saw Shōshin, hands bound behind her back, exiting the sōdō with Junichiro walking ahead of her and three samurai behind, one prodding her back with a musket.“What do we do?” Keiko whispered.

Myoge gripped her sword. “Just stay by my side,” she ordered. She ran toward them.“Let her go!” she commanded.

Shōshin looked at her with sadness. “No, Myoge. It’s done. I’ve given myself up to them in trade.”

“In trade for what?” Myoge glanced between the samurai, Shōshin, Junichiro, and then Senkō, who was miserably trailing behind them, nursing a shoulder wound. Suddenly, she understood. She had given herself up to save Senkō.

“I gave you permission to do no such thing,” Myoge said, aware that such a statement was absurd, but not knowing what else to do.

“I’m sorry, _senpai_ ,” Shōshin said. “I could not let them kill her.”

“I see you have the girl,” Junichiro remarked, apparently nursing his own shoulder wound. “Turn her over to us as well.”

Myoge positioned herself in front of Keiko. “You have no authority here. Whatever trade you made with Shōshin does not extend to her niece. You will not be taking her.” She gestured to the receiving area in front and the stone paths between the buildings on the lower level. “You have already lost half your retinue trying to take Shōshin, while we have lost no-one. Cut your losses, _samurai_.”

Keiko put a hand on Myoge’s shoulder. “Myoge, maybe I should–”

“Hush,” Myoge snapped. “You are not going with these thugs.”

The roshi came striding up from the other side of the sōdō. “Actually, Myoge,” he said quietly, “we have lost one man.”

She turned to him. “Who?”

“Wataru.”

Myoge’s stomach sank. He had been her closest friend in this place. Anger, that old bedfellow that she had ejected long ago, slithered up into her chest. Her cheeks grew hot. Shōshin’s grief, too, was palpable now. She felt responsible for that loss.

Myoge saw Jōji running across the rooftop of the sōdō, nocking an arrow, but before he could launch it, Shōshin tilted her head. “I hear Jōji approaching. Please tell him that I wish to honor my arrangement with these men. He should not loose his arrows.”

Myoge frowned at her. _What was she doing?_ “Shōshin…”

“Tell him,” Shōshin repeated. She had resigned herself.

Myoge huffed. She looked up to the rooftop, and gestured to Jōji stay his arrows.

“I would have fought to my last breath for you,” Myoge said, her heart aching.

“I know. But I can’t ask anyone else to do that.”

The musketeer jabbed the point of his gun into the small of Shōshin’s back. “Alright, let’s move. Enough goodbyes.”

Myoge looked desperately at the roshi. “Isn’t there something…?”

He put his hand up. “She has made an arrangement and intends to honor it. There is nothing we can do.” He, Myoge and Keiko accompanied Junichiro and his three samurai out to where the battle was still thickest, in front of the _hattō_. Myoge’s heart sank as she watched them all fall in line and disappear away down the Silent Path.

 

*****

 

Shōshin was strangely not at all exhausted as she headed down the mountain on foot with Junichiro and his retinue. She had thick rope around her wrists, which were in the hands of a young female samurai who walked alongside her.The remains of this retinue looked as though they had fought to the last reserves of their strength. They were battered, tired, bloody, and in a sour mood. They did not look like a victorious party.

Only two exceptions stood out. One was Junichiro himself, whose mood was buoyant and whose body was propelled as if on fire, fueled by sheer spite.

The other was the young woman who had been assigned to walk alongside Shōshin and keep her in check. She and her bamboo armor were as battered and blood-spattered as the others, but seemed none the worse for it. Her eyes kept darting over Shōshin, sharp and curious. This would have been a girl worth training, Shōshin thought.

“Did you fight well?” she asked the young woman.

The young woman, marching along beside her with naginata in hand, seemed surprised to be addressed by Shōshin directly. “Me?”

Shōshin smiled faintly. “There is no-one else but you beside me.”

The young woman drew her shoulders up and nodded. “Yes. Yawata no Kami was with me today.” The Shinto war god was popular among _samurai_ , but the young ones especially. “But I must admit, I was surprised that the nuns were so skilled.”

Shōshin nodded. “They are some of the best fighters I have ever seen. Do you know why that is?”

The young woman shook her head.

“Because they practice The Way.”Shōshin looked gently at the young woman. She wore her hair pulled back from her face in a short ponytail, not unlike the way Shōshin had worn hers when she was still a samurai herself.

“Are you…” The young woman hesitated a moment. “Are you really Amaterasu’s Hand?”

Shōshin gave her an amused look. “I was. But no more. I have become something better.” She chuckled at the way the young fighter squinted at her, confused and a little skeptical. “What’s your name?”

“Yamashita Yuko,”came the response after a moment of uncertainty.

“Yamashita,” Shōshin mused. “I knew your father, I think. Yamashita Goro, was it?”

Yuko nodded. “He said you were the fiercest general he had ever fought for. I was determined that I would follow in his footsteps and serve you as well … at least, until such time as I would marry.” The quizzical look lasted for a long while. “It seems strange to me that you would come to this.”

Shōshin felt oddly liberated by the entire situation. She knew that her choice had been the right one. “Yuko, when a _samurai_ serves a wicked master, what is she to do?”

Yuko’s marching became slightly less confident. “A samurai’s oath is everything.”

“Even if she is asked to commit grave moral wrongs?”

Yuko grew uncomfortable. “But how does one know whether they are being asked to do grave moral wrongs? There are always layers of truth in between the orders and their source.”

Shōshin nodded. “Yes. But in my case, I knew the source. Intimately.”

Yuko bit her lip. “I don’t understand. Do you support Tokugawa? Or Toyotomi? Why did you break rank with your master?”

Shōshin looked at her sympathetically.Noboru’s soldiers did not entirely understand what his plans were, even now, or where he stood now that Ieyasu Tokugawa had accepted the uneasy alliance with Toyotomi Hideyoshi that had now made Hideyoshi the de facto ruler of a nominally united Japan.“It is neither about Tokugawa, nor Toyotomi. A _samurai_ must serve her _daimyo_ , but she must also stand for those who cannot stand for themselves. She must lead when others cannot. That’s what you will learn one day.” She nodded at Junichiro, who was marching ahead of them, strutting like a peacock, indifferent to the condition his troops were in. “But not if you follow him.”

Yuko took a breath, about to ask another question, when Junichiro noticed that their conversation had become entirely too friendly and barked over his shoulder, “Yuko! Stop blabbing like a fishwife!”

Yuko’s mouth snapped shut.

“Inouye, you nuns are supposed to be good at silence.” 

Shōshin took his meaning. She spoke no more until the retinue reached the village in the foothills, where Junichiro commandeered a handful of horses for himself and a few of his men.He rode over to her, glared at Yuko, and then took the rope that she was holding, pulling Shōshin along beside him.

She walked next to his horse. “I could almost be your groom,” she observed lightly.

He scowled. “You think you’re funny, do you?”

“No,” she answered. “The roshi is funny, when he wants to be. It just seemed ironic to me that I would be walking alongside your horse like a groom, yet it’s you that’s doing the leading.”

Junichiro shook his head. “You know, it’s a shame in the eyes of the gods, what’s happened to you. Your Buddha isn’t saving you now. And you walk next to me like an idiot, making jokes, as if you don’t understand how much trouble you’re in.” He seemed genuinely pained for a moment. “I once admired you.” He shook his head. “This is what you’ve become. And for what?”

She shrugged, unbothered by his disappointment in her.

Her response annoyed him. “You have nothing to say? After all this?”

She looked up at him, calm, confident and feeling entirely lighter of spirit than she should at this moment. “Love, Junichiro. That is the reason I have become this person. Love for the world, for all things. For the Buddha, and the _bosetsu_ , and even you and my husband.”

He snorted and tugged harder at her rope, but she anticipated his move and skipped forward, not breaking stride. That she failed to stumble annoyed him further. “So you betrayed your lord and husband, and tried to kill me, and slew Riku and Hinata, because you loved us?”

She was smiling at him. “If I had asked you to disregard your master’s request that we punish Ugomori and his family, would you have done it?”

“Of course not!”

“And yet it would have been a moral wrong to kill them for crimes that we had no evidence of. It would not have been a just action. Is that not so?”

He glared at her, then gave the horse a light slap on the neck, and picked up its pace, forcing her to jog alongside him.

“Had I known then what I know now,” she panted as she jogged next to him, “I would have given you the opportunity to decline to execute them before resorting to killing you. And for that I am sorry, Junichiro. You are a good warrior. That’s why you deserve a better _daimyo_ than the one you now serve.”

“I won’t drink the poison of your disloyalty,” he spat, but he said nothing more, all the way to Kurikotan.

 

*****

 

“Death is not an end,” the roshi said quietly to Myoge, “merely a transition.”

She knew this. The words were small comfort at this moment, however. She and another monk, a younger man named Sekitatsu, were in the bath house, seeing to the body of Wataru. Myoge was restive. She struggled to find the serenity to do what needed to be done, but Konjen Roshi had made clear that there would be no going after Shōshin. That was not what was appropriate now. She chafed at the pronouncement, but it was non-negotiable.

After cleaning the wound and stitching it so that it would weep no further, Myoge and Jōkaku bathed the body and dressed it in fresh robes, and then sent for four monks to assist them with bringing his remainsto the sōdō, where it would be placed in a square wooden casket, so that the body could be placed in the position of sitting _zazen_.

Wataru had been about five years older than she, and though not her official _senpai_ , he had often illuminated things for her when they were hard to see. He had taught her the proper use of the longsword, and when she became developed enough to play the role of _senpai_ to others, he had often had good advice. He was her friend and brother, and she would not meet him again in this life.

She suspected he had seen through her feelings for Shōshin, perhaps even before she herself had been aware of them. She regretted not telling him of the vision in the water. He would have had thoughts that had not occurred to her.

The square casket was of relatively simple design, hewn and built by hand by some of the residents of the monastery, and bore characters from the Lotus Sutra carved around the lip of its sloping lid. The brothers lifted the body into it, and then positioned it for _zazen_.

Not having any further involvement at this time, she retreated to the gardens in the back of the zendo, where the pyre was being built. Monks were hauling brush in from the mountainside for kindling. Myoge sat in the grass and sought an elusive moment of zen. It escaped her.

There was nothing she could do for Wataru. He was no longer here. Though she grieved his absence, there was nothing to be helped by her staying. She was anxious and unable to sit still. Every twitching muscle in her wanted to chase Junichiro’s retinue and liberate Shōshin, to prevent her from being taken from this world as well.

 _And then what?_ she wondered. To bring her back here would mean dragging Deepest Mountain into an open conflict with the shogunate, and Noboru would send wave after wave until they were destroyed, merely to assert his authority. 

Yet leaving her to his mercies was not acceptable. She questioned herself as she sat beneath the white pine whether she would be so anxious to pursue were it any other member of the order. She concluded that she would still be anxious, but not in this same way. She had the sense of a piece of herself having been torn away from her.

That was it, she thought, settling into the truth of that thought. She had become so bound to Shōshin, that being separated was nearly unbearable. But what could she do? If she succeeded in freeing her, then what? To live a life of constant running, constant motion? Traveling under cover of dark, faces shaded by basket hats? Sticking to small roads and cheap inns, or sleeping on mats in the open woods? Her mind dwelled in this for a moment. She thought of leaving the order altogether and living such a life, one of unrelenting danger, but one lived together, in which they shared a fate, a bed, and their bodies.

To quell these thoughts, she went into the sōdō and took up with her calligraphy, writing wishes for Wataru as was often done under the circumstances. She was not alone there. Several others, including Senkō, were working with their brushes on long, bright strips of paper. 

Senkō looked furtively at her. Myoge barely acknowledged her.

“What are you writing?” she asked the younger nun.

“Wishing that his karma is reborn as a _bosetsu_ , and that becomes part of all that is good and wise in existence.” She answered without looking up. After a moment, she added, “And you?”

“I am asking him what I ought to do now.” Myoge offered no further explanation, despite Senkō’s evident lack of understanding.

They worked in quiet for a little while longer. “I am sorry for your loss,” Senkō tried again to engage her. “I know that you and he were especially close.”

Myoge nodded. “It is not the only loss I suffer.”

Senkō nodded, shamefaced. Her shoulder was bandaged where she had been shot with the retainer’s musket.

Myoge had no room in her heart for anger or frustration, but her grief had taken root now, and she decided that she needed to be alone with it.

 

******

 

Some hours later, the whole zendo had gathered in the front yard. Many of them bore long strips of colored paper with calligraphy on them, inscribed with sutras, messages of love, and wishes for the dead. Myoge barely held awareness of them. They stood for a long while, chanting sutras and bowing to the four corners. Then the procession went through the front, up the steps to the second level, and then to the third where the gardens and training yard lay. The pyre was set up in the gravel of the garden. The stones had been raked so that lines radiated from the center, where the pyre sat, resembling the sun.

 _The sun,_ she thought. _Amaterasu._

The roshi came, and guided the four monks bearing the coffin, helping them to place it accurately in the center of the pyre. Myoge’s heart clenched and unclenched. _What should I do, Wataru?_

She listened to the roshi leading them in chants; chants to ease their grief, chants to ease the passage of Wataru’s life from his body, chants to connect them all to the wisdom of the Buddha and the love of the goddess of mercy. Through it all, Myoge was restless, barely able to keep with the chanting.

As the night descended on the mountain, the pyre was lit, and the chants continued.

She recalled the day in the garden when she told him that she was so struck by the beauty of Aguri transforming herself and finding the peace that Zen could bring, when practiced well. He had asked her, “Do you truly believe that she can change?” Myoge was unhesitating in her convictions that it was possible. “Then,” he had said, “everything else that happens after this will have been worth it.”

That memory, she decided, was her answer.

The yellow firelight clung to the trees and tossed shadows across the garden. Myoge stood alone, watching, chanting along absently as one sutra then another were begun and ended. For a while, she sat beneath the white pine again, and remembered the support of her old friend as he promised to stand beside her should Aguri prove untrustworthy. She gazed at the shadowy tops of the cryptomeria trees that stood black against the star-spattered sky, her eyes wet from grief and the stinging of the fire’s smoke.

She slept for a while, sitting upright against the tree. She dreamt of a bird of flames, preparing to rain fire on the land, and then another bird, made of stars, of ice, and of night sky. The night bird came to the flame bird and wrapped its wings around the flames, not quenching them, but holding their warmth, showing the bird that it could burn and be beautiful without destroying. Myoge knew of no such shinto gods, but she watched in awe at the love between these two vast, ancient creatures. And when she woke, the fire was burning lower, and someone else was leading the chants.

The sun was creeping up over the rear wall of the zendo. The roshi was standing in front of her.

She looked up at him.“I’m going after Shōshin,” she said calmly.

“I expected you might.”

“Wataru would tell me I should go, and not wait for the ashes to stop smoldering.”

He was unperturbed. “I expect he would. You and he were always cut from a similar cloth.”

She frowned for a moment, and then stood up. “You aren’t trying to stop me?”

“What can I do? If you wish to go, you may go. That obligation weighs upon you.”

She became a little frustrated suddenly. “But then, why are we not all going?”

He was patient with her. “Because, in my estimation, her choice to give herself up and honor that arrangement overrides my wish to retrieve her. That is her decision, for her own honor.”

Myoge shook her head. “How do you not see that the honor of the order is also at stake?” she demanded.

His look was implacable. “Myoge, when you are a roshi and you have your own order, you may run it how you like.”

She wiped her hands on her robe and looked around. The tenor of their conversation had attracted some curious looks. “If we allow this, then our word to protect our own is worthless to any novitiate who commits themselves to this order. If I have to go alone, I will go.”

His mouth quirked a little. “I see. So, you free her and then what?”

Her breath had quickened a little as she stared at him. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I suppose I’ll figure that out. But all I know is that sitting here doing nothing is an affront to my soul, to the promises we made to her, and to the love of the Buddha. If no-one wishes to come, I don’t care.”

The roshi said nothing. She ignored the curious stares of the others. She stopped at the armory, stuck a katana in her belt, and headed out, down the Silent Path.

 

*****

 

Myoge’s steps were calm but inexorable.She kept a brisk pace down the mountain, trying to calculate in her head how long it would take her to reach Yahadaka, where Noboru’s castle stood. It would be a good four days if she kept a brisk pace on the high road. She thought perhaps she couldmake Shakonagawa village in two days and appeal to a ferryman to allow her passage downriver. Most times, a nun or monk could get passage for free if the ferry wasn’t full. That would likely cut off a day.

Still, she thought unhappily, three days. A lot could happen in that time. She was unaccustomed to the kind of urgency she now felt.

She still had no idea how she would manage to get Shōshin freed. How would she get into the castle? How would she find her? How would she get her out? She would simply have to concoct a plan when she got there.

She listened to the muttering of the trees and the birds and the crunch of her straw sandals and the end of her staff on the footpath as she walked. It was trampled down somewhat by the earlier passage of Junichiro’s retinue. The zendo was now vulnerable, she thought. People knew where it was. It had managed to remain somewhat obscure all this time, as many of the mountain homes of warrior priests had done, but no more. This thought troubled her immensely.

A stirring in the trees caught her attention, the rustle of leaves and the thud of footsteps in the damp earth. She stopped, silent, and looked around.

The thick bamboo parted, and the long face of a bewildered-looking white stallion emerged.

Myoge smirked. “Hello,” she said, and walked nearer. She extended a hand.

The horse moved forward. From his bridle and the long, graceful sweep of his forelock, she recognized him as the stallion she had ridden in the battle at the zendo.

She plucked a few bamboo leaves and held them out in her hand. “I’m sorry I haven’t got something tastier to offer you.”

The horse, seeming to slowly decide that she was to be trusted, emerged, bamboo stalks bending to allow him through, one or two of them snapping under his hooves as he stepped. His thick, velvety lips and sloppy tongue descended into her palm and spent a moment there, eating the leaves from her hand. She patted the side of his face with her free hand, and then took hold of his bridle and led him out onto the path, smiling at him.

“It seems you and I have been brought together again. Will you tolerate me on your back for a little while longer?”

The stallion whuffled his assent and pawed at the ground with his straw horseshoes.

She swung herself up into the saddle. Things were, perhaps, looking up.


	52. Ambush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex has some strange dreams. Kara is ambushed.

Astra had taken time to consider that her approach with Kara the first time had probably been the wrong one. The truth was, she hadn’t authorized the Hellgrammite’s little feeding frenzies at the chemical plants, nor his decision to kill the humans who guarded them.It seemed logical though, that since he had put himself on the humans’ radar, that he would be ideal bait to draw her niece to her side. She hadn’t considered that her niece would respond quite so adversely to his behaviors. She’d hoped for a chance to talk, and she hadn’t gotten it.

And so, two days later, she had arranged for her husband to surveil Kara and bring her to a chosen location when the time was right. She squinted up into the sky. It appeared the time was right.

Astra watched with calm satisfaction as Non plummeted out of the sky and crashed into the cement of the rooftop she stood on; he had Kara pinioned beneath him. He had descended on her, knocked her off her flight path and forced her down here to where Astra waited with a few other members of her command crew.

He jumped to his feet. Kara stood up, shaking off the impact, glaring at her.

Astra smiled. “You didn’t really think this was over, did you?”

Kara put her hands on her hips. “Is this how you start all your conversations now? Because I have to be honest, I feel like you need therapy.”

Astra squinted at her. This was a variety of sarcasm specific to humans and she didn’t quite understand it, although she was sure she grasped the general idea. “I told you, I just wanted to talk, away from the prying ears of your human companions.”

Kara shook her head. “But we can have a chat with your goons standing around us? Maybe I don’t want to talk in front of them, either.”

Astra realized that she had taught her niece well. _Be suspicious. Be careful. Don’t give away anything that you don’t have to._ She had never been sure whether Kara was listening when she had dispensed those pearls of wisdom. It appeared she had. She smiled. “Kara, I need you to see sense. Why would you fight against your own family?”

Kara was seething. “I don’t care who’s doing wrong, wrong is wrong.”

Non stepped forward. “I do not think you understand that you cannot stand against us.” And he unsheathed a small glowing green knife, not unlike the one that they had encountered in the earlier skirmish with the humans. Astra had gotten Baqan to synthesize more of it based on the splinter that came home in Astra’s shoulder.

She grumbled internally. Non was too quick to pull the knife, both in general and on this particular occasion. She watched Kara go pale and a sick look came over her face.

“Are you certain you still wish to fight me?”

Kara stared at the knife. “Kryptonite? How… how come you’re not affected?”

Astra tapped the glowing blue pip attached to the bib of her black uniform. “Kryptonite? Is that what you call it?” She chuckled. “This was developed by my scientist. He is drug-dealing scum–”

“I’m standing right here,” Baqan complained.

“You are what you are,” she snapped at him, then turned back to Kara. “But he is brilliant. He developed a means to shield us from the radiation of the heavy haldamite that your precious humans have learned to weaponize against our kind.”She stepped a little closer. “So you see, Kara, resistance to our plans is not stacked in your favor.”

Kara looked at the knife, looked at Astra’s face, looked at the other members of her contingent, back at the knife one more time, and then suddenly broke away from them and hurled herself over the side of the rooftop.

Panic gripped Astra’s chest. Surely Kara would not be driven to something as foolish as suicide by this threat? She leaned over the spot where Kara had jumped, and then smiled.

She saw that Kara’s descent had punched a hole in the sidewalk.

Kara had known that her abilities would return if she was far enough away from the knife, and had calculated that they would be back by the time she hit bottom, which would enable her to punch through the street and get below. Once down there, well… this was her city. Astra and her people would not likely be able to catch her, not being familiar with the strings of subterranean transport tubes, sewer and electrical systems and Rao knew what else that lay stretched beneath the city.

Strangely, she was proud.Ambushed, Kara had made a quick and canny tactical decision. It was in the blood. There had to be a way to win her over.

And maybe she would bring that strange human too.

“Why did you take the knife out so quickly?” Astra demanded.

Non shrugged. “I did not want her to fly away, General.”

“Well, she appears to have managed it nevertheless.”

 

 

******

 

Alex knew she was dreaming.Actually, she wasn’t sure if she was dreaming, or remembering. She was on the Viking ship again, feeling the cold wind on her face. Someone’s arms were around her. She was looking at the Northern Lights rippling on the horizon. A sense of freedom, of passion and adventure seemed to fill her chest. She wanted to kiss the person who held her.

And then it faded to black, and there was nothing.

Alex couldn’t see clearly. It was just dark. But something glowed.

It wasn’t malevolent, the light, but it frightened her. Its intensity, its heat frightened her. She willed her mind to focus.She chipped away at the unclear until it was clear.

It was a vast, fearsome bird made entirely of flames, with huge golden wings. She gasped. She found herself moving toward it, felt her heart racing. It was frightening, but it was beautiful. The bird of flames hovered over the earth, and while no-one had said anything, she knew instinctively that it was about to breathe its fire and consume the world, singeing the blue ball in a torrent of flames.

She didn’t want that to happen.

As she drew nearer to the bird, as she soared through space, she became aware of her own vastness. She was nearly the size of the flaming bird, which was large enough to douse a planet in fire.She became aware of her own wings, which were black and cold, the feathers encrusted with ice. 

“Not the earth,” she whispered to it, “that’s not what you were made for.”

The fiery bird snapped its great wings and heaved a breath.

Alex, in this dream, knew what she had to do. She flew in and wrapped her black-feathered wings around the bird. She was an inferno. The heat would have blistered any other being. But Alex, in this dream, was not any other being. She was the only one whose cool heart could stay this flaming bird’s fires.

“My love,” she whispered, holding tight. “Stay with me a little longer.” In this dream, she knew the bird, and loved it. She lowered the bird’s fires just enough, and her own heart was warmed, and they held each other in delicate balance.

But then the flames came.

Alex woke up.

 

 

****

 

She woke to the sound of banging on the window. Kara was there, hovering outside, needing to be let in.

Alex rubbed her eyes, shook off the dream, and shuffled to the window. “I really hate when you do the window thing in the middle of the night,” she grumbled as she opened the window, but then she noticed the rock dust all over her, and the bedraggled look of her hair, and paused. “What the hell happened to you?”

Kara floated in and touched down on the wood floorboards. “I ran into Astra again.”

“What do you mean, ran into her?” Alex looked around for the soft, shapeless sweater she liked to throw on when she had to get up in the middle of the night. She found it over the back of her chair and shrugged it on while Kara talked.

“I mean,” Kara said, taking a breath, “Non knocked me out of the sky when I was on my way home from a rescue tonight, and divebombed me into the roof of a building. She was there with him and a couple of thugs.”

Alex woke up immediately. “Are you okay?”

Kara nodded. “Yeah, mostly. She’s still trying to get me to switch sides. Also, I got a few unpleasant surprises.”

Alex’s heart sped up. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it seems like they found a way to shield themselves from kryptonite radiation.” Kara put her hands on her hips. “Which honestly, why didn’t we ever think of trying that?”

Alex shrugged. “We sort of did. It was hard to calibrate because the radiation is really erratic. She must have a really good scientist on board.”

Kara hmphed. “Anyway.”

Alex rubbed her eyes again. “So, how did…”

“Oh! Right. So they had me on the rooftop and Non came at me with the Kryptonite and, Rao, does that stuff make me so nauseous! But anyway, I pulled away from her and jumped off the roof–”

“Without powers!?”

“Well yeah, I knew I was going to have them back as soon as I got far enough away from the Kryptonite. It worked like a charm. I bashed through the sidewalk, and then into the sewer and electrical systems under the city. Zipped all the way here underground. Those sytems are like a labyrinth, there’s no way they would be able to follow me.” She drew herself up, prideful. “This is _my_ city, not theirs.” 

Alex shook her head. “What … what did she say?”

Kara shrugged. “She wants me to join her thug army.”

Alex frowned. “Why does she think you would do that?”

Kara shrugged. “Because blood bonds?” She sighed, shook her head, and bits of rock and dust fell out of it and sifted to the floor.She glanced down at the little mess. “Sorry.”

Alex walked to the fridge and grabbed the broom and dustpan from behind it. She started sweeping up Kara’s little mess while she talked.

“So, how many people did she have with her?” Alex asked.

“Half a dozen, I guess? I don’t think she really wanted to hurt me, but she’s also not like I remember her. I think all this time being married to my uncle has been bad for her.”

“So, when you say thug army, how many do you think she has?”

“No clue. You know, I basically worshipped her when I was a kid,” Kara went on. “She and I had a little secret thing, you know … she gave me a spy beacon like the ones she gave her real spies, so that if I ever needed her, I could call her, no matter where she was.”She stopped, seeming to become sad at how close they once were and how much she had lost.She shook her head an continued. “And now she’s talking all this stuff about … I don’t know. Conquering earth to save it, and yelling at me about not remembering the Kryptonian mythology.”

Alex yawned. “Yeah. She said something about that when she and I had our first inauspicious meeting too. ‘I’m not here to kill you, I’m here to save you.’” Those words were burned into Alex’s mind, along with the very small number of other words that had passed between them.She bent down and swept the pile of dust and detritus into the dustpan. _We cannot take away what the gods have given us._ “We’re not just dealing with a rogue Hellgrammite and a cranky Kryptonian. It sounds like a goddamn intergalactic invasion. Fuckballs,” she whispered.

Kara paused, for the first time seeming to register that Alex seemed not entirely herself. “Are… are you okay?”

Alex shrugged and shuffled over to the trash. “Yeah. You just woke me up from a really weird dream.”

Kara frowned. “Wanna talk about it?”

Alex shook her head. “Nah, it was just trippy, that’s all.”

But Kara wasn’t about to be deterred. “Are you sure? You’ve seemed a little off ever since we fought Astra that first time.”

Alex hesitated. How could she explain the impression that her encounter with Astra had left on her? It would sound crazy. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just worried about you. I mean you thought you were alone in the universe except for your cousin and now your aunt comes out of nowhere, but she’s not who you remember anymore… I mean, that’s gotta be messing with you.”

Kara nodded. “Yeah, it is. I don’t want to fight her. I don’t want to hurt her.”

“And you have more family than you thought you did.”

Kara looked at Alex for a long moment. “You’re my family, Alex. You and Eliza. I… I don’t know Astra anymore.” She moved in for a hug.

Alex put a hand up. “Whoa, whoa. Out of that pressure suit and hit the showers, Digger Dan. No hugs till you get some of that grime off.”

Kara looked down, sheepish. “Sorry.”

Alex put a hand on her shoulder and tipped up on her toes to give Kara a peck on her dirty cheek. “You can have all the cuddles after you wash up. There’s some sweat shorts and stuff in my bottom drawer.”

Kara smiled, peeled out of her suit, and shuffled off to take a shower.

Alex went back to bed, pulled up Netflix on her phone, and watched an episode of Friends while Kara took a shower. She fell asleep during Ross making a soliloquy about dinosaurs and woke up to Kara curling up next to her a little while later. They used to do this a lot when they were younger. Alex didn’t feel right about burdening Kara with her struggles, but she found comfort in this kind of bond. Kara was like a god, and what could be more comforting than having a god view you as the person they loved the most?

Of course, that came with a certain pressure too. Having a god relying on you emotionally wasn’t easy.Drinking had been a way of releasing that pressure. She was glad that she no longer relied on that. She began breathing, mentally reciting the sutras as she drifted off. As she did, she was visited repeatedly by a memory of cherry blossoms showering down around her on a mountainside near Osaka. She had never been to Osaka.

She heard Kara instinctively synchronizing to her breath.

She slept. 


	53. Northern Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tension grows between Ardith and her friends.

The Nagelfar was making excellent time, her great square red sail full and pulling the ship, sinuous and elegant in its movements, across the waves, up the coast to where Frisia became Denmark. The air was getting colder and the winds bit in a way that they had not, up till now.

The day had worn on, and Ardith had been drawing mead from the barrels all day. Not quite with the same ferocity as that first evening when she had allowed Ase to touch her, but all the same, the girl drank, and wanted others to share in it. On the heels of Ingrid’s funeral, and the subsequent burial of her ashes with the grave goods, none of the crew were of a particular mind to pass on a pretty girl offering them a cup of mead.

The water was too choppy to think about making any more _skause_ , so Ardith helped Brida distribute what food there was to be had.The bread had gone to waste in the storm, so Ase was thinking about stopping somewhere soon to replenish their stock. 

Her moods were transient. She had been, as she considered the matter, unsurprised by Ingrid’s mutiny attempt, but somehow still disappointed in it. Was this, she wondered, the pound of flesh that she was supposed to have paid in return for the boon of making love to Ardith? Did Ardith unwittingly disrupt the will of the gods by leaping upon Ingrid? Would there be some worse price in the offing now? 

Stubbornly, she thought that whatever price she would pay might be worth it. She had not taken a lover in quite some time; after Njord’s death, her heart had refused to open for any who might have knocked upon its doors.Neither man nor woman could open it, not with sweetness, nor trickery, nor force. Yet when her eyes had found Ardith’s on the field of battle, she had been stricken with desire. And any moment when she didn’t have the girl by her side, she felt as though some other limb of hers was missing.

Ardith approached her with a cup in hand and offered to her. Ase took it and sipped, letting the sweet mead linger in her mouth for a moment before downing it. She leaned back against the mast, and drew Ardith close to her, kissing her as if there was no-one else there. Ardith responded with equal fervor, and for a moment they were tangled that way. Ase pulled back to look at her. In her braids, and new _kyrtill_ , with Sköfnung at her waist, she truly looked like a Dane. Ase felt that perhaps the gods had chosen to be merciful, just this one time.

After all, why else would Odin have appeared to them and given them the gift of language, even if only for that night?

 

*******

 

Ardith disengaged from Ase.Between the drink, and the kisses, and the memory of their night together in the shack, she was becoming far too aroused and there was little she felt inclined to do about it here and now.She slid up against Ase for a moment, and nipped at her ear, and murmured in it, “You’re making me want you again.” She knew Ase didn’t understand the words but she would understand the tone clearly enough.

She pulled back, and saw with great satisfaction that Ase indeed looked ready to pounce on her and repeat their previous performance.

She sauntered over to her friends, aware of the hungry look that followed her as she walked. She came with two cups of mead for them and sat, feeling pleased with herself. “I’m hoping to have drained two more barrels by day’s end.” 

They took the cups, but both were looking at her somewhat worriedly.

She cocked her head to one side and looked at them. “What troubles you?”

They both shook their heads and drank their mead.

A few awkward minutes passed, and she grew irritated by the heaviness of the silence. The mast creaked, the wind muttered, the crew bantered, and the three of them sat, wordless. “Out with it,” she finally snapped. “Say what you need to say.”

Wyne was the first to speak. “I worry,” he said delicately, “that you are losing yourself in the role you have to play to win our freedom.”

Her stomach sank, then rose, and then turned over. “What?”

“You’re dressed like a Dane,” he pointed out.

“She made me!”

“And your hair is like a Dane’s.”

“Again, she did that.”

“And you carry a Danish sword.”

“She gave it to me!”

“And why is that?”

“It was Ingrid’s, and–”

“And you killed Ingrid. Why?”

Ardith flushed, upset with the direction this was taking. “I told you why. She was going to kill us!”

“Us,” Wyne repeated. “Now you and Ase are ‘us.’ Do you not even see what is happening?”

Ardith’s eyes grew hot with angry tears. “She was standing there with a knife!”

They gazed at each other. She didn’t understand why her friends looked so sad. But all she felt was anger and …guilt? Why guilt?

“Ardith,” Jetta pressed gently, “we worry. You have not been yourself these past days. You don’t kiss her like a prisoner who’s being forced to. You kiss her as if you truly desire her. You look at her with…” He hesitated, clearly uncomfortable. “…with lust.”

A tear escaped Ardith’s eye. “You’re just jealous! You wish I would look at you that way!”

Jetta knocked his head back against the barrel and groaned. “Yes! I do! But if you found a man to marry tomorrow who was a good Saxon man, I would wish you all the best, thank the gods, and call it a bargain!”

Wyne added, “Ardith, you know good and well that my concern comes from no such jealousy, but I see it too. She has confused you.”

Ardith leaned forward. “You placed your trust in me and I have never once betrayed you,” she growled, her heart sticky and hot with hurt and wounded pride. “I mean to kill her and get us away, and I am risking more than either of you to acheive that end. And yes, since you asked before, Jetta, I did let her have me when we were on the island. I enjoyed it. I hope to do it again before I kill her. There is little joy to be had in our current lot, lads, and if I am able to wring so much as a drop, by the gods, I will have it.”

She got up and stomped away, picking her way across the decking planks to where the mead barrel sat, and drew herself another cup. Part of her wanted to let Ase have her again, right now, in full view of the whole lot of them, just out of sheer spite. She felt an odd thrill at the thought.

But then, she had not changed quite that much, had she.

With Ingrid gone, Brida was now navigating. Ardith looked for things to do to occupy herself, as she had no desire to sit with her friends just now, so she practiced knotting the rigging ropes and seeking corrections from the others in the crew. Karsi sat her down and tried to show her how to play a game he called Hnefatafl, and she was getting the idea of it, but the ship was tossing too much. The pieces, though they were fist-sized and made of stone, kept sliding off of their squares, so they abandoned that pursuit. 

Jetta and Wyne’s words had cut her deeply, in truth because she feared her own commitment to doing what was needed when the time came.

 _I’m weak,_ she thought, becoming glum. She sat down on a sea chest and drank.

 

 

******

 

 

Night came in slowly, and torches were lit. The winds seemed to give way to slumber, too, and the Nagelfar’s progress slowed.

Ase’s mood was buoyant, though. She and Ardith engaged in a little mildly drunken sparring with wooden swords. Ardith was sloppy, but she was finally enjoying it the way Ase always had. Oh, she thought happily, that light in her face.

After a bit of quiet seas, Ase decided that they should row a bit, so the deck was rearranged again to accommodate the rowing, and they went to work at it. Ardith was at her side, playing with her braids, nipping at the side of her neck, tugging at her belt. “If you’re trying to start trouble,” she scolded, “I’m having a difficult time saying no.”

Ardith looked at her with twinkling, mischievous eyes.

Ase shook her head, slid an arm around Ardith’s waist, and drew her close. She watched the backs of the oarsmen moving forward and back in perfect time with each other. “My star, you’re in a mood tonight. Have you finally decided that you love me?”

Ardith gave no answer, of course. Ase kissed her and then disengaged, finding she was rather in a mood herself. The heaviness of her spirit earlier had given way to a feeling of gratitude, and a sense that perhaps, with Ingrid gone, their journey would be lighter all the way home. She leapt to the starboard side of the boat and up onto the gunwales, and began walking along it, heel to toe. Those not rowing chuckled at her antics.

“We’ve excised the traitor in our midst!” she declared as she moved lightly up the length of the ship. “We’ve reason to expect nothing but good luck now, and we’ll be home in a few short days!”

Hungerd, who was not rowing, applauded and lit another torch. “Well and good, Ase, that you can walk along the gunwale, but I can do that too!”And she leapt up atop the opposite side and began to duplicate Ase’s path.

Ase chuckled. “Let’s see about this, then.” She looked at the rowers and declared, “Oarsmen, keep your strokes steady, no matter what may happen next!”

And then she took a breath, jumped forward, and ran from the front of the ship to the back on the moving shoulders of the oarsmen. Some grunted with discomfort but none broke rhythm, since she was never on any one’s back for more than a moment. So light on her feet was she, that she barely made herself felt as she ran over their shoulders and landed on her feet with a thud, on the decking planks in back.

Hungerd grinned, bowed with exaggerated obsequiousess, but admitted defeat, and fetched her a drink. She saw Ardith looking at her as though she intended to tear her clothing off right there.

 

******

 

 

Ardith had never seen anyone pull such a trick. She could hardly explain why it made her feel hungry for Ase, but it did. She was an incredible creature, more like a god than like a human being it seemed, and Ardith, for all her hatred for the Danes, could not deny that.

She sat alone on a sea chest watching her. After her stunt, Ase was looking particularly electric, crackling with heat. As Ase drew closer to her, grinning and clearly pleased with herself, Ardith had to rub her eyes and blink hard; it really did look as if Ase were electric, emitting some kind of low, colored light.

Ase noticed her curious expression. She tilted her head and looked for a moment at Ardith, then glanced over her shoulder and gasped with surprise. She said something in Danish and then took Ardith’s hand and pulled her to her feet, speaking in an animated manner as she pulled her toward the stern of the ship.

No doubt she was explaining what was happening in the sky, for Ardith had never seen it before. Ardith remembered Caja talking of these things, the lights in the sky, but it had lost much in the translation.The night chill was settling in and she was seeing the horizon as if it burned with a low fire that rippled and changed colors, from blue, to pale gold, to purple. The English skies never did anything like this. As she watched, fingers of color sometimes reached upward in the black vault of heaven, for a moment drowning out a star or two before retreating. Ardith stood rapt, looking on in stunned wonder.

She had always suspected that more beauty existed in the world than the cliffs along the straits and the yellow-gold waves of the marsh that stretched out past Haedwalle. And here it was. It was a sky that flamed in colors that defied imagining, the taste of sweet honey mead, a wind that bit. It was standing on the deck of a marvelous ship with a billowing red sail, being held by a woman who was built like a goddess of both war and sex.

She felt as though she could remain this way for a long time, and indeed she had no idea of how much time passed as she stood there in Ase’s arms, feeling the occasional kiss on the back of her neck and the cool weight of the iron hand against her belly. Only when Brida called sharply for Ase’s attention did they both startle from the rapture of that moment. Ase withdrew from her.Something, it seemed, was afoot.

 

*******

 

Brida’s voice was urgent. “I don’t know if they’ve seen us yet but if they haven’t, they will soon.”

Ase frowned. “Are you certain it’s Swedes?”

“There is no doubt. I recognize the vessel. It’s the Havsorm. It belongs to Einar’s eldest son, Knut.”

Ase clambered up onto the raised deck at the prow of the ship, and peered out into the night. Brida’s eyes had always been better than anyone’s except perhaps Ingrid’s.There was surely a ship coming their way. Whether it had intended to find them was unknown, but it was a Swedish vessel, and from what she could tell at this distance, a fine one. 

“A ship that size carries perhaps thirty men,” Ase thought aloud. “I think we can take them.”

Brida was skeptical. “Is it wise? This crew has been through much.”

“I won’t have the filthy Swedes calling us cowards,” Ase decided. “And it’s a beautiful ship. You’re right, this has been a difficult journey, but how much more worthwhile if we come home with all the treasure we already hold as well as a fine Swedish ship belonging to the young _jarl_?”

Bjorn, at this point, had wandered over and was standing on the deck below her. “What’s happening, Ase? Are we fighting?”

She grinned down at him.“I should say we are, Bjorn. The Swedes are worthless but that ship is a fine one and I mean to take it.”

He smiled lopsidedly at her. “Do you think we can?”

She addressed her voice to the crew, some of whom had taken a break from rowing and were getting drinks. “What do you all think, my friends? Are you all too tired to take a ship from a bunch of Swedes? Or have we had enough of plundering for one journey? Shall we simply slink home and hope that they don’t engage us?”

The crew, of course, chuckled a little, but Harald raised a knotted arm and shouted, “Let’s take their ship! We can release your ferocious little woman on them! They’ll never know what hit them!”

Some more laughter rippled through the crew. 

Ase thought about this. Ardith, in battle. For the first time, they would fight side by side. She needed this to happen.

Brida, who had continued to watch the other ship and time their approach, announced, “I think it’s thirty men. They’re pointed right at us.They’ve put their lights all out now. If we’re going to run, we’d best do it now, but if we’re going to fight, we’d best get ready.”

Ase looked at the crew. “Fight or flight, my friends?”

“Fight!” they all answered.

She smiled. “Good. Now, quiet. Arm yourselves. Torches out. Be ready.”

She jumped down and walked back to where Ardith stood, extinguishing torches as she walked. Ardith was looking at her with mild curiosity. Ase took her by the arm and led her to the front of the ship. She pointed at the Swedish ship approaching on the waves. “Swedes,” she said.

Ardith looked at her questioningly and gripped Sköfnung’s hilt.

Ase nodded. “We fight.”

Ardith looked at her for a long moment before nodding her understanding. She pointed to her friends. Ase looked over her shoulder. “What about them? Ah, what are we going to do with them?”

Ardith frowned. She mimed nocking an arrow and firing it.

Ase understood her. “Ah, yes. My clever creature, quite right.”She called to one of the other men in the crew and sent him below deck to retrieve Jetta’s bow and the quiver full of arrows that he’d had on him when they took him at Haedwalle. She looked back at Ardith. “And what of Wyne? Can he fight?”

“Wyne?” Ardith chuckled. She understood what Ase was asking, it seemed, because she just shook her head and pointed below the decking planks. _Just hide him,_ she seemed to be saying.

Ase nodded. “Alright then, my love.”

 

***

 

Ardith strode over to her friends, who she’d not spoken to all day.

They looked up at her. Their expressions were hard to read in the dark.She knelt down and began untying their ropes.

“What… what’s going on?” Wyne asked.

“There’s a ship full of Swedes coming this way,” she explained, quickly picking the knots apart. “You’re going to hide below deck and Jetta is getting his bow back.”

“And what about you?” Jetta asked.

“As far as I understand it, I’m expected to fight.”

The pregnant pause only lasted half a second too long before Jetta said slowly, “So… we fight for the Danes now?”

Ardith stopped. “Right here,” she explained impatiently, “is the monster we know. Out there is a monster we don’t know. If the battle turns in their favor we might be slaughtered along with everyone else on this ship. Ase has reasons to keep us alive. The Swedes don’t.”

Her logic was simple and airtight. She went back to untying their wrists.

“And when the battle is done,” Jetta asked, “and the Danes have won, then what? We go back to being tied up?”

She sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, my friend, but I don’t know the answer.”

“Why am I to hide below the deck?” Wyne asked suddenly.

“Did you suddenly become a swordsman?” Ardith snorted.

“No, of course not, but you didn’t even ask me if I had any clever ideas.”

Ardith looked at him with eyebrows raised. “Do you?”

He shrugged. “Give me a moment. I don’t know how we’d explain any clever ideas to the Danes if I even had them, but… I’ll think a bit.”

“Don’t take too long,” she warned, becoming serious again. “The Swedes are going to be here before you can piss over the side of the boat and close your breeches.”


	54. A Walking Meditation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myoge's quest takes her out of the way. Shōshin unlocks a secret on her journey.

Shōshin had not minded being told by Junichiro to hold her silence.

In fact, the interminable walk from the mountain to Kurikotan became a _kinhin_ , a walking meditation of sorts. She remembered taking such walks with Myoge and the other brothers and sisters of the order, in between long rounds of sitting _zazen_. So she straightened her back and folded her hands in front of her belly, just so: thumb of her left hand curled in, and her fingers wrapped around it. Then she wrapped her right hand around, resting her right thumb in the crevice formed between her left thumb and index finger. This was called _shashu_ , and she placed her full attention on its correct execution.

With eyes cast down a few feet in front of her, she breathed with each step. At first she was aware of Yuko looking curiously at her, but after some time, she was no longer aware of anything but her breathing and her steps.They stopped here and there to eat, to water the horses, to briefly rest, and in those times, she sat _zazen_. But then, she was always ready to walk again.

With each step, her confidence grew. She was aware of the rightness of this action, and the intent that drove it; she was going to face her husband, and he would repent his ways. She knew this, in the core of her being, though she had no evidence to support it but her own conviction.

But she had love. She had the love of the Buddha and all the _bosetsu_. She had the love she had held in her heart for the husband who had made her his general, and that love made her desire to see his karma set right. And most of all, she had the love that bound her to Myoge, whose spirit she felt even now, in this seemingly desolate situation. Shōshin was not desolate. She was serene. She was filled with love. Over a day and half of _kinhin_ left her calm and filled with a sense of rightness in the world.

By the time they reached Kurikotan, she had so fully connected with the Buddha heart, and with the Buddha spirit in the world around her, she felt as though she could taste the intentions of the wind before it blew, feel the stars grieving the departure of the sun, sense the vibrations of the retinue’s footsteps before they struck the ground.

Kurikotan was a medium-sized town at the crossroads of two high roads. It bustled with merchants and ink shops, sword polishers, and in the daytime, its streets were crawling with watermelon vendors, fishmongers, puppeteers, musicians, and the like, all seeking to cater to the travelers passing through. Now it was evening, and one could only just make out the town’s curved rooftops and the streets lit with a mix of plain paper lanterns and pine torches. It was the hour when men went to the sake bars, and women with bad reputations went to offer them company.

If they continued in the direction they were going, they would reach Noboru’s castle in a day or so. If they broke east, they would be going to his country estate. She wondered which they would take when they resumed their travels in the morning.

The retinue, though half the size it had been when it arrived at the zendo, still took up all the available rooms at two of the inns on a busy thoroughfare in Kurikotan. Junichiro had taken a room on an upper floor of one of them and was, she expected, having himself a hot bath and drinking some sake along with a hot meal. Shōshin was relegated to a stable out back, hands still bound, under the guard of four young samurai. 

The smell of hay and the sounds of the horses occasionally snuffling didn’t bother her. She inspected the faces of the young soldiers, who looked at her with expressions that she understood were meant to be stern and threatening. But under it she could feel their confusion _–why is Inouye Aguri in such a position?–_ and their fear. 

Leaning casually back against a wooden beam, she looked at one of them. “You know, you needn’t keep me bound this way.”

He glared back at her. “Then you might try to run off.”

She smiled, and stood up. She held her wrists up to them. “I’m here by choice. Nothing could keep me from making this journey with you.”

The soldier drew his sword and stepped closer. “You should sit down,” he warned.

“Will you untie me?”

He snorted. “Of course not. The general would have my head.” He stepped closer. “Now sit down. I don’t want to have to use this.”

She shook her head. “What’s your name?”

“Iori.”

She nodded. “A perfectly fine name.” She looked around at the other samurai, who were standing in the pale moonlight that flooded through the stable door, looking nervously at her. “Iori, I don’t wish to embarass you in front of your friends. Please do me the courtesy of untying me so that I may get a decent sleep tonight.”

The other samurai also unsheathed their blades and moved closer. “Just stop playing around,” one of them said. “And sit down like he told you.”

Iori’s sword came closer to her chest. But she could see he was afraid. Her utter calm shook him.

“I will gladly sit,” she responded, still smiling faintly, “once you untie me.”

Iori put the tip of his sword directly against her chest. “Sit. Now.” But she could smell his fear, could hear the way his fingers gripped the hilt of his sword as though his life depended on it. The tightness of his grip would be his undoing.

Her hands moved up, into his rigidly held blade, and sliced open the bonds around her wrists. And then she was crouching down as his sword plunged forward into the beam where she had stood half a second before.

With her hands free, it was over quickly, as she disarmed Iori and kicked him off of his feet and then faced the other three samurai. She took up his sword. With a flurry of ringing steel, she moved like a whirlwind among them. They were young, but reasonably well trained, yet they did not understand The Way. She blocked every one of their blows, and then struck back only with the flat of Iori’s sword, shaming them without drawing a single drop of blood. She knocked each of them to the ground, and struck them again if they tried to get up. When they had ceased to get up again, and lay bruised and embarassed on the dirt floor of the stable, she looked around at them, smiling benignly. She dropped Iori’s sword on the ground.

Then she walked back to her corner, and sat in a meditative posture. Closing her eyes, she told them, “I told you. I’m here by choice. You needn’t bind me. If you’re intelligent, you’ll let me sleep like this and not breathe a word of it to your general, who’ll no doubt shame you if not outright kill you for being beaten so soundly by a nun with her hands bound. I’ll let you tie me up again in the morning.”

They got up, looked at each other, blinking in confusion, and remained silent for the rest of the night.

 

****

 

Myoge felt that encountering the stallion again had been a stroke of divine providence.Given their full day’s head start, Myoge supposed that they had still beaten her, but probably not by very much.

She was stopped now, a little ways from Yehadaka. The tiered rooftops of Noboru’s castle sat stacked, one atop another, all of it perched on a high stone wall overlooking Lake Mitsokune. Her eyes caught on the bright red lacquered railings of a long wooden footbridge that led to the main gate. She would have to leave the horse tied up here. It would hardly do to have a humble buddhist nun come riding up on what was clearly a war horse.

She had taken to addressing the horse as Wataru, and so as she left him, she spoke calmly and easily: “You’ve been very helpful to me, Wataru, and I’m indebted for your service. I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait here, though. I’ll be dead before I even reach the gate if they see me riding up on your back. They’ll probably recognize you as Junichiro’s horse, because you’re so handsome.”

The horse seemed to nod in agreement. _Yes,_ he seemed to say, _I am very handsome._

She smiled and tied him to a spreading pine at the crest of a hill outside the city that overlooked the lake. And then she began the long walk to the wooden bridge.

When she had been living in the world, her father had taken her on trips to Osaka and Kyoto. She had seen her share of castles. In fact, she had even been inside of the one in Kamakura when she attended school there. Her father, having been a respected scholar, had an audience with the shogun once, and she had been allowed to attend.This one was nowhere near as large as the ones she’d seen in those cities of her youth, but it was somehow more imposing. The curved black-tiled rooftops, embellished with gold leaf, seemed forbidding as they loomed above the landscape. Statues of lions roared into the sky at various corners of the rooftops.

She was entering the lion’s den.

She held her staff as she approached the two guards. She was betting on them not taking much notice of her, and she was right. Their eyes never traveled over her and didn’t even register that there was a sword at her waist.

“If you’re looking for a handout,” one of them said without really looking at her, “you can go around to the stables and see old Goro, and he’ll give you some rice gruel. His lordship doesn’t like to put people up for the night but there’s a temple a little further down the road that can give you lodging if you need it.”

She nodded her thanks, and followed their directions to the back gate where the stables were.She was ushered inside, and found her way to the stables. The horses seemed to take note of her. Perhaps they smelled the stallion on her.

She found an older man dressed in a clean but frayed kimono, giving straw to some of the horses in a stall. He had thinning hair and a shaved pate like a samurai, but his dress conveyed that he clearly didn’t claim any sort of real status.

“Are you Goro?” she asked.

He grinned. “Old Goro, yes.”

She smiled. “They called you that at the front gate, but I didn’t realize that it was your name.”

He nodded. “So they sent you to me. You must be looking for a little something to eat.” 

She hadn’t realized till now that she was hungry. She had been riding hard and with a single focus, finding Shōshin. But suddenly, she smelled cooking rice and it became all she could think of for a moment. “Now that you mention it, I think I’d love a little of whatever’s in that pot.”

He shuffled over to a pot over a brazier in a corner of the yard. He produced a small wooden bowl from somewhere nearby, and spooned some of the gruel into the bowl. He presented the rice and some pickles to her and then bowed respectfully. “I didn’t know there was a convent nearby,” he commented as he handed her a spoon.

She took the food with gratitude, and inclined her head in thanks. “Many thanks, Old Goro.” She sat down on a bale of straw, then took a large spoonful and ate it. After swallowing, she added, “And there isn’t. I’ve traveled quite a way to get here.”

Old Goro seemed surprised. “For what reason?”

She looked carefully at him. He still wore an old sword at his waist in a scratched laquer scabbard. “I was hoping to pay his lordship a visit.”

He tilted his head, curious. “Do you know him?”

“No. I want to give him a message of the Buddha’s love.”

Old Goro chuckled. “Well, I daresay he could use it.” He squatted down beside her and continued chatting. “But I doubt he would hear it. He’s not very fond of monks and nuns. And anyway, he isn’t here now.”

She frowned. “Where is he?”

“I heard he went to his country estate in Furuhime, you know.”

Her heart sped up. She had wasted time coming to the wrong place. Noboru wasn’t even here, and that meant that neither was Shōshin.

She had thought to sweet talk her way into the castle but there was no point now. And with her stomach newly in knots, she knew lingering here much longer was a waste of time. Old Goro took note of the worry on her face.“Are you alright?”

She nodded. She changed the subject. “Tell me about the sword at your waist.”

He patted the scabbard. “Served me well, once upon a time. It was made by Ishiwara Tetsu, before his retirement many years ago.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “It was blessed by the local Buddha, you know.”

In many parts of the country, Shinto cultures had simply absorbed the Buddha as one more god to be appeased and appealed to for goodwill, and each fief and village seemed to have their own peculiar variations on him.Myoge idly wondered what particular Buddha had been invoked for Old Goro’s sword. “So what of his wife? Is she with him?”

Old Goro scoffed. “Haven’t you heard? She was given up for dead months ago.”

“Is that so?” Myoge said, her mind already racing as she finished her gruel.

“Oh yes. The story is that he asked her to kill someone and she rebelled, fought off a dozen retainers and went off to the mountains to die.”

Myoge’s lips pursed. It wasn’t far from the truth, but it wasn’t quite what had happened, either. “And what do you think of that?”

He shrugged, but his voice betrayed a quiet resentment. “Well, I knew the man she was meant to kill, and I could never believe there was much reason to kill him.” He cleared his throat awkwardly, and attempted a jovial chuckle. “But what do I know, I’m just a stable keeper.”

Myoge considered him. Perhaps this visit was not useless, after all. “But you weren’t always, were you?”

He looked pained. “No. But I’m grateful that my _daimyo_ only demoted me and conscripted my daughter, instead of killing me for saying what I thought.”

She looked at him. He was instantly transparent to her. He was lucky to be alive, and he knew it. But he resented it, all the same. She leaned forward. “What if I told you Inouye Aguri was alive?” Her voice was almost a whisper.

His eyes widened. He took a breath to question her.

She held up a hand. “What if told you that she is with him now, and I’m on my way to rescue her?”

“You? But how?”

She patted the hilt of her sword, which he noticed for what seemed like the first time. “You are more than you appear,” he guessed.

She nodded. “So are you.”

He gave a meek smile and shrugged.

“What if I told you that you are only as helpless as you think you are?”

He looked around anxiously now, and then leaned in. “Do you mean to kill him?” he whispered.

She smiled. “Only if I have to.”

His brow furrowed. “You’ll have to. I know him enough to know he’s not going to let her go. If what you say is true, you’ll have no choice.”

“Then so be it.” She looked around.

“If you see my daughter…”

She nodded. “Of course. What is her name?”

“Yuko. There aren’t many women in his retinue. You’ll find her easily.”

She set the bowl down between them and stood up.“Old Goro, I thank you for the food. I must be on my way, now.”She looked at the still-burning brazier, and the stables, and then the sky. “Remember that Yahedaka Castle stands only because you allow it.”

They bowed to one another.

Twenty minutes later, Myoge was astride the stallion, riding away, while the first clouds of thick grey smoke billowed up into the sky from behind the castle.

 

****

 

When they departed from the inn at Kurikotan, Iori and his friends bound Shōshin’s wrists again. She smiled knowingly at them as they did so.

She was surprised to discover that they were not continuing in the same direction. Their destination was not Yehadaka at all. They clearly seemed to be heading towardFuruhime, to the country estate.

She resumed her walking meditation, feeling that each step she took was bringing her nearer to her true dharma, and that she need not fear what she was walking into, because it was the true path that had been set before her.Many truths were revealed to her as she walked. The shining path was all there was.

It was love, in action.

After several miles, well into the hot part of the day, at a moment when Junichiro had ridden up ahead to take a break under some cryptomeria trees near a bend in the road, Yuko came up beside her again. “Why do you walk that way?” she wondered.

Shōshin didn’t look up from the road ahead of her, but she smiled. “I’m refining my soul while we walk.”

Yuko didn’t know what to make of this. “Is it working?”

Shōshin nodded. “It is.”

“You must know that I bring you to your death,” Yuko said after a moment of their footsteps shuffling along the dirt road.

“No, you don’t,” Shōshin answered.

Perplexed, the young woman peered at her. “But that’s what we’ve all assumed. We all heard what you did, after all.”

“Perhaps the price of what I’ve done is death, and perhaps it’s not. But I go to my fate willingly.”

Another silence. “Yes,” Yuko said finally. “I’ve heard that too. I overheard Iori and some of the others talking about what happened in the stables last night. If you could get away so easily, then why don’t you?”

“I don’t want to. My husband’s karma is in need of polishing.”

Yuko shook her head and kept walking. She didn’t say anything more.

They broke at the place that Junichiro had chosen. Shōshin sat down and accepted the rice balls that were handed to her by one of the younger samurai. They had ordered a number of box lunches when they left Kurikotan, and the contents of these were distributed among the retinue.

Junichiro came and looked at her. She was sitting with her eyes closed, savoring the taste of the food. Not because it was particularly delicious, but merely because it was the taste of life being sustained. She looked up at him, serene as she had ever been.

“What is wrong with you?” he demanded. He was clearly angry that she seemed neither exhausted nor anxious, neither worried nor uncomfortable.

“Nothing,” she answered. She held up her bound wrists. “Will you unbind me so that I can eat more comfortably?”

She saw Iori and his friends exchange nervous glances.

Junichiro leaned down in her face. “I would have followed you off the edge of the earth once. And now look at what a disgrace you are.”

She saw him, then. She saw into the quivering mass of illusions he clung to. “Someday,” she told him gently, “he will ask you to do something which will conflict with what you know to be right. And then you will see why I chose as I did. You will have to make the choice between tarnishing your own soul, and being a breaker of vows. It will not be as easy as you imagine it to be.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“I pity you,” she finished.

He snorted. “You pity me! You’re walking to your death, don’t you understand that? Your husband will be the one to sever your head from your shoulders.”

“Yes,” she answered. “I pity you. Because I will be dead, but you will still be serving a wicked master.”

She saw his fist coming before he even lifted it. It whistled past her cheek as she leaned back, and then with her bound hands, she struck upwards into his chin, knocking him backward. She kicked up with one leg, pushing him into the dirt, and then grabbed the sword from his scabbard, holding it with her two still-bound hands. The point was a hair’s breadth from his throat.

“Don’t wrinkle your nose before you strike,” she told him. “You give yourself away.”

She dropped the sword to the ground.

The samurai in the immediate area had all drawn their swords, but it was needless. Shōshin went back to her place under the tree, and ate.

 

*****

 

A curious thing that was happening. Her incessant practice of _kinhin_ on this journey had opened her to a different sort of vision, a different connection with the world and all that lived in the world. She felt a closeness and kinship to all of it, a kind of understanding that was transcendent in its simplicity.

And always at the edge of her consciousness, was the light of Myoge’s spirit, the illumination of her path in the dark.She had a sense that it was drawing nearer to her, but she couldn’t be sure of this. It could only be the wishes of her own heart.

When they came upon the outskirts of the Furuhime estate, it was late in the day. The sun was setting over the pale grasses of the slopes leading down to the estate. It was a series of low-slung buildings, plaster and wood and simple black tile. It was well appointed but it did not scream out that it was the home of an important _daimyo_. It was, compared to the castle at Yahadaka, fairly modest.

Gone was Junichiro’s peacocking confidence. He was a man who had done what was asked of him. Nothing more.

They placed her under guard in the largest of his entertaining spaces. She spent a long time gazing at the crest of his house, which was painted in gold ink on paper dyed red and was the character that represented, among other things, fire. This was a familiar room. Many times had she listened to music in this room, played _shogi_ on a board of cherry wood and ebony, lit incense while guests tried to guess the scents contained therein.

After some time, Yuko entered and awkwardly announced that, as the only female warrior in the retinue, she had been charged with seeing that Shōshin was bathed and dressed properly.She held up a black silk kimono like the ones Aguri had worn, a white obi, and new straw sandals, as the _zori_ she had worn all the way from the zendo had become raggedy.

“It is not necessary,” Shōshin replied, smiling.

Yuko shifted. “It… those are my orders. If you please…”

Shōshin chuckled. “I can’t have you getting in trouble on my account. Alright, let’s go.”

As she sat in the hot bath, cleaning the dirt of the road from her skin, she sang to herself those chants that Myoge had sung the first time she’d bathed her:“ _May I eliminate all evil thoughts… May I cultivate good deeds… May I help save all living beings…”_

“What is that song you sing?” Yuko asked.

“The song that taught me, not so long ago, the true meaning of love.” Myoge had sung those words, she now understood, because she was cleansing the Buddha heart already inside her.

Yuko was silent, but nodded respectfully, deep in thought.


	55. Decontamination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and J'onn do decon. Alex attempts some spiritual decon after that.

Alex and J’onn stood awkwardly in their utilitarian black undergarments in the dim of the decontamination room. They had their backs to each other. They’d had to go through this before. It wasn’t a big deal. Just awkward.

“How’s the leg?” he asked.

A speaker overhead crackled. “Okay, folks, hold still, here comes round one.”

Several sets of blazing white lights came on in the room, from the cieling and walls and floor tiles. Alex gritted her teeth, squeezed her eyes shut and waited for it to pass.

“It’s fine,” she said, when the lights went off again. “It’ll be better when Liu patches it properly but the field gauze is holding for now.”

Another uncomfortable pause followed. “So,” J’onn said then, “do you want to tell me what happened back there? How’d you know you were going to be able to get close to Astra?”

Alex sighed. She knew he was going to ask.She didn’t want to get into it.

“And don’t tell me later. Because it is later.”

“I just … we had a moment, okay? She seemed …” Alex floundered for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain what had happened to her without sounding like a lunatic.

The speaker crackled again. “Okay folks, we’re gonna do another round, so you know the drill.”

Even with her eyes squeezed shut, it was still uncomfortably bright. She held still and kept her hands at her sides. She was glad though, because the discomfort was buying her time. After a few minutes, the lights went off again. 

“She seemed what?” J’onn pressed.

“She seemed, um.Curious? Interested in me? I mean, in humans in general?”

J’onn seemed skeptical. “What exactly did she say?”

“Well … it wasn’t so much what she said, it was… how she said it?”

“How did she say it?”

Alex sighed. “I don’t know. Like I said, she just seemed really, really interested in looking at a human up close and personal. I just had a feeling that she … she didn’t want to hurt me, or at least, that it wasn’t something she was actively interested in.”

J’onn harumphed. 

The speaker came on again. Alex closed her eyes in anticipation.

“Do let me know if you remember anything useful, will you?”

“Of course.”

 

*****

 

Alex sat in medbay, getting the puncture wound in her leg patched up by Dr. Liu.The spot where the Hellgrammite’s pincer or whatever the hell it was pierced her skin had been throbbing since the fight. Liu handed her a couple of little white pills and a dixie cup of water.

“Seriously?” Alex complained. She knew that those were not the good painkillers. “Nothing stronger?”

“Not for this,” Liu responded. “It’s just a flesh wound. I’m not in favor of passing out Vicodin to someone with your history.”

Liu had been around for Alex’s hard drinking days. There was no arguing with her. She nodded.

Kara sat next to her, watching Liu tape the gauze onto the spot where she’d stitched Alex up.

“So that was your long-lost Aunt Astra?” Alex muttered.

Kara nodded. She was still numb from the whole experience.

“What did she have to do with the Hellgrammite?”

“She says he was one of her men.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Oh, great.” She paused to take Liu’s painkillers, and then crumpled up the cup and tossed it at the small trash bin beside the sink.“Three points,” she declared, as it bounced off the wall and dropped in.

Kara smiled a little, but she was clearly weighed down with this new revelation.

Alex prodded. “So… you said… she went to jail… but you didn’t say why?”

Kara nodded. “Yeah, well. My mother sent her away. She said that she and my uncle killed a bunch of people when they blew up a government building.”

Alex’s eyebrows lifted. “They blew up a government building? Why?”

Kara shook her head. “I think she was trying to get the council to listen to her about the dangers of continuing to mine haldamite from Krypton’s core, but they were ignoring her. She was getting desperate, I guess.”

Alex frowned. “Well, not that I’m condoning terrorism, but… I mean, she was right, no? I can understand her getting desperate under the circumstances.”

Kara scowled. “That’s not the point. That’s not how you do things. You don’t just solve a problem with violence.”

Alex looked at her own tactical blacks, the pants of which were torn open to expose her bandaged leg, and then at Kara in her pressure suit still dusted with bits of glass and concrete, and raised an eyebrow.

Kara snorted, fully taking her meaning; _how are you going to condemn violence when that’s kind of what we do?_ “What were we going to do, invite her over for dinner?”

Alex smirked.“So was that it? Just … she blew up those buildings and your mom sent her away?”

Kara looked bewildered. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, is that all she did? Was that her only crime?”

“It’s enough!” Kara exclaimed.

Alex held up a hand. “I know, I know, I’m not implying that it’s not. I just wondered if there was more on the rap sheet. Trying to figure out who we’re dealing with.”

Kara settled down a little. She nodded. “Yeah, that’s all I know about, anyway.”

Alex nodded. Her head was still roiling with uncomfortable thoughts that she didn’t know what to do with. “Does … does she have any … special abilities?”

Kara wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean? She’s a general, she’s a great warrior, a master of multiple fighting styles, a widely praised tactician… um, you know, and she sings, actually… she has a beautiful voice, I remember when she used to sing the hymns to me–”

Alex shook her head. “No, no. I mean like … telepathy, mind control, anything like that?”

Kara frowned. “Not that I ever knew about. We don’t normally have those kinds of abilities. Why?” Kara peered worriedly at Alex. “Did something happen? Did it feel like someone was poking around inside your brain?”

Alex sighed. The content of the incident was still too jumbled, too raw, too hard to explain. And she didn’t want to scare Kara for nothing. “No, nothing like that. I think I’m just overworked or something.”

Kara nodded. “Yeah, well, we have been keeping pretty rough hours lately.”

Alex yawned. The painkillers were actually working well enough. She wanted to go home and have a nap.

 

*******

 

Astra still felt sick. Non had been ready to extract her, thank Rao, but the human’s knife had done something inexplicable. She was still feeling it. Her medical officer had removed the splinter it had left in her flesh, and she could breathe easier now, but she was far from well. “I do not understand,” she complained, trying not to sound like she was wheezing. “Why am I still unwell?”

Since she had arrived on Earth, some ten years ago, she had found herself gifted by the yellow sun with godlike powers. Flight, invulnerability, all of those same gifts that her niece seemed to have, as well as that cousin of hers, Kal-El. No-one had pierced her skin with any sort of weapon since that day.

He had the splinter under analysis and had a glowing representation of its radiation readings floating in the air before them.Baqan was a scaly, scrawny Shuvan with a receding hairline and a mouth like a ripped bag fluttering in a wind. “Look at those readings,” he sighed through his floppy lips, sounding honestly fascinated.

Baqan had been sent to Fort Rozz for concocting intoxicants. Powerful ones.

“Yes, I see, it’s radiation,” she groaned impatiently. “But what kind?”

“General, this is … a fragment of your own home world of Krypton.”

Astra didn’t understand. Perhaps it was the wound making her addled. “Why would it affect me so?”

He mused for a moment, looking it over. He took a pair of tweezers and shifted it under the scope.“You’ve been here a very long time, General. Your body has grown accustomed to what the Earth’s atmosphere and yellow sunlight has done for you. Fragments of home? Well.It appears that they have become poison to you. When Krypton imploded, my best guess is it created this stuff… sort of a … well, a ‘heavy’ version of Krypton’s most prevalent ore, I believe you called it haldamite. This stuff is poison now. It saps your strength and every other advantage you might get from being here.”

She grunted. “How come you’re not affected?”

He shrugged. “I’m Shuvan. Why would it affect me? This stuff is just returning you to your natural state, but…” He picked it up with the tweezers and approached her.

A wave of nausea shuddered through her. “Get it away from me!”

He stopped and backed up a few steps. “But as you can see, you’ve been here so long, your body is not particularly excited about being returned.”

Astra collapsed on the table. “Fine. Now we know. Work on something to counter it. I need to rest. Get it away from me.”

They had spent years rewriting the Myriad code so that it would work on human brains. They were agonizingly close to being ready to roll it out. Why couldn’t Kara understand that her intentions were benevolent? Yes, it was stripping the humans of their free will, but look what they were doing with that free will. Oceans full of plastic. Rivers full of mining waste. Air full of carbon. And that dreadful, toxic haze the Californians called smog. Myriad was a simple, elegant plan. It would get them all in sync and working together, efficiently, capitalizing on their individual strengths.

They would get used to it.

Once the team at Fort Rozz found a way to deploy it.

 

******

 

“You seem distressed.”

Alex frowned. “I am. I have a question.”

The youngish Japanese guy, Koku Roshi, sat across from her, smiling calmly. He waited for her to ask it.

“Um, what’s the official Zen teaching on, um, reincarnation?”

He looked skeptical. He fiddled with his earring for a moment. “You can Google that one on your own. That can’t be why you needed to see me.”

She sighed. “I… It is… I mean, that’s not all of it, but that’s part of it.”

He nodded. “You’ve been practicing only a few years. I guess there’s still a lot you don’t know.” He peered at her. “Why do you ask?”

She had begun her study of Zen with this punk-rock looking Roshi who had a zendo in Fukuyama District, because she knew Zen seemed like something she needed but felt out of place at any of the “normal” zendo that she had tried. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Why don’t you try?”

She struggled. Like many people in Alex’s life, the roshi knew she was in some sort of law enforcement but she tended to be very light on the details of her job. “I had a curious experience recently. I haven’t been able to explain it, so I guess I’m just trying to rule things out.”

He gazed at her with usual faint, expectant smile, waiting for her to open up.

“I just … I’m not somebody who, you know … sees things.”

“You mean hallucinations?”

“No. Well, I mean I don’t have those either, normally, but you know… visions. I’m not that type of person.”

He shrugged. “Most of us aren’t.”

“Right. Okay. But… I saw some things… and part of me is really anxious to understand them, but part of me thinks I should try to just forget about it.”

He nodded. “You’re being incredibly vague, but alright.”

She sighed. “Sorry, some of it is things I can’t tell you because of my work. I just don’t know if these were hallucinations, or like a window on past lives, and if I should try to find out what they were or just… pretend they never happened.”

He smiled. “So that’s why you’re asking about reincarnation. Because you’re trying to figure out if you’re crazy or not.”

She gave an embarrassed sigh and rubbed the back of her neck. “I guess.”

“Well, the official teachings are that we don’t believe reincarnation the way the Hindus do, right? We can’t, because the majority of the self is an illusion, so there’s no discrete, free-standing anima or consciousness that goes from one life to the next. So you can’t really be, you know, a pirate in your past life because what we teach is that it doesn’t work like that.”

She bit her lip, concentrating on his words. “Okay, so rebirth…?”

“Yeah, that’s not the same. That’s you becoming something new.”

She nodded. “So, short story, no on the reincarnation stuff, we don’t believe that?”

He hesitated. “Mostly, yes. The only caveat I would put to that is we understand sometimes that one’s karma can be passed on.”

She gave him a pained look.

“But that’s not the same as your soul, in the way that Christians and Hindus talk about it. It’s not a consciousness that moves from one body or vessel to another. It’s more like a flame on a candle, and that flame gets passed on to another candle.”

“My brain hurts. So what does that look like?”

He shrugged. “It can look like a lot of things, or nothing at all.”

She was getting frustrated. “Okay, so… even if I have some passed-down karma from some other life or lives, it’s not like it carries the memory of those lives, right?”

“That is the teaching,” he said carefully. After a moment, he asked, “Why would you think what you saw were past life memories?”

She shrugged. “They just felt very real.”

He shook his head. “Maybe you got drugged. What kind of parties have you been to lately?”

She snorted. “None. But definitely not that kind.” She thought about it some more. What if that was a possibility? It hadn’t even occurred to her. A powerful hallucinogen? Maybe.“Maybe I did. I really don’t know. Anyway I probably should forget what I saw, right? I mean…”

“Well, that’s up to you. Sometimes your subconscious has things to teach you, so even if you had been drugged, maybe your mind was trying to show you something. But there’s also danger in obsessing over things, so remember that.” 

She nodded.

“I can’t tell you what to do, but use your wisdom. If you feel that this incident causes you to stray from the dharma, then you should put it out of your mind.”

He glanced at the clock on the wall and then back at her.“Before we conclude, I will remind you, Myoge, of the importance of compassion. I remind you to do your best to fulfill your dharma name. And I urge you that when your commitment to the way is tested, cleave to that aspiration. Strive to be someone who heals, protects, and makes their existence a benefit to all living beings.”

“Thank you, roshi.”

She stood up, bowed, and left.


	56. Brutal, Animal Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ardith and her friends pitch in to help Ase's crew fight the Swedes.

Jetta sat, dubiously balanced, on the mostly-lowered yard of the Nagelfar, his bow in hand and a quiver full of arrows across his back. Not all of them were his; some had been recovered from wherever else the Danes had been, and the shapes and substances of their heads were unfamiliar. Some had small heads, some had heads that were forked at the back end and made of some shiny, black stone.

He had a rope around his waist and was lashed to the mast, in part, presumably to keep him balanced and have both hands free. In part, it probably was also insurance to make sure he didn’t wipe out his captors and make a break for the Swedish ship in hopes of better luck there.

He wasn’t happy about the limitations of his position. He looked down at Ardith. “What am I to do if the Swedes make it onto the ship?”

Ardith smiled wryly. “Well, if the Swedes make it onto the ship, then we’re all fucked, brother.” She gripped Sköfnung’s hilt and went to take her position with the others.

Wyne was indeed hiding beneath the decking planks near the stern of the ship.Before he had retreated to that position, however, he had taken a number of iron stakes and quickly bent them, riveted them together, and built about five iron claws. He attached them to the ends of ropes and then explained to Ardith that when they pulled up alongside the Havsorm, they could hurl those hooks into the other ship’s hull, and prevent them from pulling away. 

Much to his disappointment, he was told that no fire-based weapons could be used because the ship itself was too valuable.

Ardith’s Danish still wasn’t very good, but with a combination of using the words she knew and a bit of pantomime, she explained their purpose. Ase seemed to understand, and gave her approval. 

So Ardith found herself here, hunkered down beside half a dozen Danes under an unfurled length of rough hemp cloth, wedged behind some barrels.

 

********

 

Ase stood on the raised deck, leaning against the back of the dragon’s head as if she had nowhere in the world to be, drinking mead from a cup.She had only ten men on the oars, slowly moving toward the Havsorm. She wondered whether Knut Einarsson was on the ship, or if it was only being moved for him from somewhere to somewhere else.She had killed his father, Einar, at Skarvøld, and he would surely not allow the Nagelfar to leave without attempting to avenge his father.

As she drew nearer, she saw that it was a full crew of roughly thirty, and she recognized the emblazoning on the rows of wooden shields that lined the outside of the bow.It was a pretty little warship, its dragon head carved with a roaring open mouth and ornate filligree running down the prow. Its iron bolts and fittings were adorned with silver. Its great square sail, currently also half-lowered like the Nagelfar’s, was blue and white. Outlined in the remaining vestiges of the rippling Northern Lights, it looked like a little prize laid down before her by the gods themselves.

“You there!” the commander of the Havsorm called out to her when they had gotten close enough.

“You there!” Ase shouted back.

“Do you have business here?”

Ase shrugged and held up her free hand, pretending she couldn’t hear him.

“I say, do you have business here?”

“Come about!” she cried back. “I can’t hear you!”

There was some hurried discussion on the Swedish ship and then it began to come about. “Hold your mark!” the commander called to them.A few minutes of patient watching followed, as the Havsorm drew up alongside.

The commander was a young man. Not much older than Ardith, by Ase’s estimation. He had to be Knut. “What’s your business in these waters?” he asked again.There was at most, fifteen feet between the ships now. 

She tilted her head and studied the young man. His crew was young too, and most of them did not look especially scarred or battle-seasoned. “Why? Aren’t Swedish waters well north of here, Knut Einarsson?”

Knut seemed surprised that she had identified him. “They are.”

Ase gestured off the port bow. “It seems to me that you are far from home. Are you lost?”

She squinted through the dark to see if there might be any more men hiding in the Havsorm, but it was a much smaller ship than the Nagelfar, so there were simply fewer places to hide.Was he really just this great a fool to engage her here?He smiled, and shook his head, and peered into the Nagelfar, trying to get a look at her complement. “Not at all. We are returning from trade at Helder and heard from some folk that the crew of the Nagelfar had taken a beating.” He looked at the few oarsmen and tilted his head, smiling at her. “But it’s worse than I thought!”

She smiled. “And you came to offer your assistance?”

The younger man was grinning now, gripping the hilt of the sword at his waist. “We thought perhaps we would relieve you of some of the cargo that might be hindering you.”

So he was truly that great a fool.

Ase took a long, deliberate draught from her cup, and then tossed it over her shoulder. It landed on the decking planks with a metallic thunk.“Think again.”She gave out a fierce yell and the rest of the Nagelfar’s crew emerged from their hiding places.

They rushed to their positions, and took up Wyne’s ropes with the hooks on the ends, and swung them over till the hooks bit into the inside of the Havsorm’s gunwale.A few moments of oar work along with some fierce pulling began to draw the two ships nearer to one another. 

Knut realized what was happening, and ordered his crew to resist the pull of the Nagelfar’s ropes, but all they could do was slow the inexorable drawing together of the two vessels. Ase, not interested in patience or prudence, waited until the ships were a mere seven feet apart, took what little she could in terms of a running start, and hurtled up over the bow of the Nagelfar and onto the deck of the Havsorm, sword drawn, barrelling straight for Knut. 

The youth was built like a bear, broad at the chest and shoulders, tall, with a powerful grip.His sword was nearly four feet long, and he raised it in time to block a blow that was coming at him with all of her considerable force. The oarsmen, having abandoned the notion that they might withdraw and gain advantage, abandoned their oars and leapt up, drawing swords and taking up axes to deal with the impending onslaught of Danes boarding their ship.Some managed to grab their wooden shields off the gunwales before they were forced to raise them in defense.

Clearly, this had not been quite how Knut had envisioned any of this happening.

Over her shoulder, she could see her crew leaping across from the bow of the Nagelfar to the stern of the Havsorm, two at a clip, and dropping onto the deck with battle cries.

“They’re all yours, my loves!” Ase called to them as they stormed the deck. “Only Knut is mine!”

Steel clashed and rang as Ase and Knut laid into one another.No roundshields, just swords, matching one another swing for swing.

“Was this your entire plan?” she demanded, laughing at him.

He was a head taller than her, and his weapon was nothing to chuckle at.He had a grudge that was nearly as old as he was, and a crew to back it up. “I have always heard you were overrated,” he taunted. “Nobody saw you kill my father. People say that Njord really did it.”

He wielded his large blade with unusual accuracy.She raised her iron hand and caught a blow coming in from the left.“Well, boy,” she responded, “after I kill you too, you can decide whether or not they were lying.”

 

*********

 

Ardith looked up at Jetta where he sat on the lowered yard. “Start shooting!” she called up to him. “And stick to hitting Swedes, if you don’t mind!”

“You’re not any fun!” Jetta shouted back, and then he took an arrow from its quiver, and fired it into the fray.His first bolt landed in a Swedish roundshield with a thump that was audible even where Ardith stood.

The Swedish crew was young, clean and dressed reasonably well considering that they were at sea.The one that Ase was fighting seemed to be particularly well-heeled, probably a young princeling or something.He had on a fur cloak that swirled around his shoulders as he swung his unnervingly long sword.

The lines that kept the Nagelfar attached to the Havsorm were taut.Ardith was preparing to follow the others across at the stern of the ship when she saw one of the Swedes come running over with an ax to try to cut them.Cursing, she saw that one of Wyne’s ropes with the hooks remained unused, so she grabbed it, swung the end of it, and hurled it.She held her breath for half a moment as it whipped itself around the Swedish ship’s yard and then bit into the wood.She tugged once. It seemed solid enough.

She drew back a step, gripped the rope, unsheathed Sköfnung, and swung across the breach between the ships, barrelling into the Swede trying to hack at the lines.It was perhaps not the most graceful entrance, but her heart still pounded with the thrill of being briefly suspended in the air over the water.She knocked the Swede onto his back, stomped him in the face once, and then again.

His nose bled.He rolled over and tried to crawl away, his hands grasping for his axe, which had landed a few feet away. 

“ _Ja, min sterne!_ ”

Ardith glanced up.Ase had seen her dubious maneuver and was clearly pleased with it. For a moment, they grinned at each other. And then, they had to resume their battles.

Her glancing over at Ase had cost her the split second that the Swede needed to get at his axe again.Ardith was annoyed that despite his having been stomped in the face twice, he insisted on grabbing his weapon and trying to come at her again. 

He stumbled at her, swinging once, but she leapt out of the way and he sunk his axe into a sea chest.She drove Sköfnung into his side, twisted it, and then planted a foot against the Swede’s thigh as she withdrew her blade.

Blood ran from his wound onto the deck. 

The Havsorm was chaos now, with steel crashing against steel all around her, and an occasional arrow whistling through the air to plant itself in some Swedish warrior’s throat or eye.She kicked the Swede to the deck, and a moment later, an arrow thudded into his chest. Ardith looked over at Jetta.

“He was already dead!” she yelled, laughing.

But with all the battle noise, he probably couldn’t hear her.

She grabbed one of the Swedish roundshields off the side of the ship and glanced around. Through the clanging of weapons and grunts and screams, she listened.She looked up toward the bow of the ship, and saw Ase, still grappling with the Swedish princeling.

This was the first time she and Ase were fighting on the same side. When she had watched the Dane fight her father, or when she had fought her on the marsh at Haedwalle, she was too concerned with surviving to appreciate what a towering figure she was.But now, as she charged through the commotion on the deck of the Havsorm, slashing her way through one skirmish after another, she was able to see Ase as the wolf that her heart had always longed after; a vision of brutal, animal grace.

Ardith could scarcely imagine fighting beside anyone else.

Maybe everyone felt this way about Ase. Maybe that was how she held such sway with her crew, how she persuaded them to follow wherever she wanted to go. Her spirit made them feel as invincible as Ardith now felt as she hacked her way through the raging battle with one thought on her mind.

She was going to stab that princeling right through the back.

 

*******

 

Ase was growing tired of Knut. He was troublesome, just as his father had been.Fortunately, she could also tell that he was growing frustrated with her, too.

“If you’d just give us some of your haul, we’d leave.”He swung low and inside, and she knocked him away.

“You may not have noticed,” she panted, “but you’re in no position to negotiate!”She planted a foot into his stomach and kicked.

He stumbled back, but didn’t topple the way a smaller man would have. She swore under her breath.

“Your oarsmen are falling one by one, my bowman has been picking off what pass for berzerkers on this fancy little _snekke_ , and you are sure to make a mistake any moment now.” She lunged for his shoulder, but he knocked her blade away, and nearly slashed into her chest with a wide return stroke.

She jumped back, misjudged the location of a sea chest behind her, and fell backwards.She struck the deck with a thud.Knut wasted no time taking advantage of her stumble, and leapt forward and stabbed downward at her face with his gigantic blade. She struck at it with her iron hand and pushed it to the side just enough that it sank into the planks beside her head.

“What was that about me making a mistake?” he sneered.

“You have,” Ase panted.

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

At this moment, Knut’s eyes bulged, and the point of Sköfnung emerged from the front of his chest, tearing through flesh, bone, and his leather vest. He gripped the hilt of his own sword, which was still protruding from the planks, supporting his considerable weight on it. 

She smiled at him as blood dribbled from his mouth. “You didn’t see my woman coming for you.”

 

******

 

Ardith pulled Sköfnung from the princeling’s back and then kicked him aside.She offered her hand to Ase, and helped her to her feet as the princeling lay quivering on the boards.

Their chests were heaving with deep breaths, and they smiled at each other. Ardith imagined she probably had about as much blood spattered on her face and clothing as Ase did.Her heart was pounding. Her blood was singing in her veins and tingling in her fingers. She felt as though she could bring the entire world to its knees.

They glanced at the rest of the battle. There were few Swedes left, and Jetta was picking them off, carefully.They plunged back into the fray to finish things.

The rest of it was a blur of slashing and kicking, of elbows and heels, sending Swedes over the side of the ship to rest in watery graves.As she grappled with one, an arrow came whistling in, nicked her arm, and buried itself in the planks. She cursed, but ignored the wound, and shoved the Swede over the side.Once she had done so, she looked up at Jetta, hands spread out as if to demand an explanation for the errant arrow.

“I was aiming for him!” he cried.

The crescendo of the battle having passed, the grunts of pain and ringing of steel were becoming fewer and farther between.She was suddenly aware of how tired she was, and the wound on her upper arm was beginning to sting. She had acquired a few other nicks and cuts during the fight, but that one hurt most.

She was not entirely convinced it had been unintended.

Harald came over and slapped her on the back approvingly, and then Ase, after walking around and barking out some orders, came to her, kissed her gently, and then set about tending the wound.She chattered away in Danish, which Ardith was suddenly too delirious to even begin to translate. All she knew was that she loved fighting. She loved Sköfnung’s weight in her hand and the way it felt pushing through flesh and bone. She loved the way Ase looked when she was fighting.

She couldn’t help thinking, as Ase wrapped clean cloth around her injured arm, that Jetta’s shot was a warning to her. His eyes were always sharp, and his aim was always true. It could have been an accident, but it seemed less and less likely the more she thought about it. Her brother was sending her a message that she needed to remember what side she was actually on.

Anger rose in her, and then subsided.

She saw to it that he was let down from the yard, and they got drunk. 

_We cannot take away what the gods have given us._


	57. The Perfume of Late Summer Hydrangeas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noboru displays his treachery. Shōshin displays her newfound grasp of the Way,

Shōshin exited out onto the large veranda that overlooked the fields and the river, and the shadows of the still-young maples trees that Noboru had planted, at her urging, when he first took this place some ten years ago.

Night was falling, and the pale grasses nodded in the soft light. Only the last wisps of pink remained at the lowest point of the horizon. Lanterns were lit, and a brazier burned at the far end of the veranda, sending little sparks and wisps of smoke up into the sky. She smelled sake, and green tea, and a spicy incense with notes of cherry blossom. It did not feel much like the scene of an impending execution.

Her husband, Noboru, sat at a low table, on rich red cushions. He gestured to them to draw nearer to where he sat.

She had not seen him in several months at this point. In the flickering light, she was tempted to say that he looked older, but she was less than certain on that point. He wasn’t dressed for war, or even for official business. He was in a short-sleeved kimono of dark green cotton, with tan _hakama_ trousers of the variety that grew tighter around the calves. His facial hair was neatly trimmed and she could smell that his kimono had sat over an incense burner overnight. He looked ready to entertain some well-heeled intimate friends.

He looked first at Junichiro. “So, you’ve brought me my wayward wife.”

Junichiro nodded. “Yes, my lord. At some great cost, I’m afraid. We lost half our retinue.”

Noboru’s eyebrow raised for a moment, then he waved a hand magnanimously. “Well, there are many samurai in Oshikaga province, but only one Inouye Aguri.” He turned his eyes to Shōshin. “So it’s true, then. You’ve cut your hair. That’s a pity.” He gestured to a seat opposite him. “Please, sit.”

Junichiro was confused. He looked expectantly at Noboru, who did not invite him to sit.

Noboru looked up at him. “You may go. I’ll call for you if you’re needed.”

Working to mask a clear confusion and disappointment, Junichiro went back inside, closing the _shoji_ behind him.

They spent a long moment gazing at one another, taking in the differentness of reality from their memories. Shōshin saw that he had laid a _katana_ across the table, still sitting in a black lacquered scabbard. Her senses tingled, and with each breath she became more certain that they were not alone.

“Where is Keiko?” he inquired casually, as if they were having a normal conversation.

“She did not come with me.”

He nodded, and another long silence followed.

“So, is this–” He gestured to her shaven head. “–just part of your plan of escape, or have you truly become a disciple of the Buddha?”

“Does it matter?”

He poured her a cup of tea and passed it across the table. “Well, I would like to know what my wife’s beliefs are now. You _are_ still my wife, are you not?”

She sipped the tea and met his shiny black eyes with her own. “I am still your wife,” she decided after a moment, “but I no longer love you as I once did. I love you with the love of the Buddha now.”

He mused on this for a moment. “Ah, well, marriages do change over time. My mother once told me this.” He sipped at his own tea for a moment, gazing out over the fields at the darkening sky. “I trust your journey was not too difficult?”

“I spent it in meditation, mostly.”

“Ah, of course you did. And tell me, did you find Yuko to be a satisfactory help in your preparations to come see me?”

“She’s a fine soldier,” Shōshin replied. “Inquistive, observant, well-trained, good breeding.”

Noboru nodded. “Indeed. The house of Yamashita has always had a fine reputation. Unfortunately, her father Goro, I learned, was expressing sympathies with your departure from my service. It seems he had some familiarity with Ugomori as well.”

Shōshin frowned. “So you killed him?”

Noboru chuckled. “I have learned something of subtlety in your absence, wife. I stripped him of his rank, and I now let him run the stables at Yehadaka, in exchange for the service of his daughter, who I think shows great promise. She’s rather like you in your youth, don’t you think?”

Shōshin knew that this was bait. She chose not to bite. Her senses continued to tingle with the feeling that they were being watched. “Subtlety is not enough. Your primary concern is with acquiring more and more power. But what will you do with it when you have it all?”

He sighed and leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head. “Then I will rule it all.”His handsome face had a dreamy expression as he relished that thought.

“It will never be enough for you.” She shook her head. “So what do mean to do with me?”

He turned his gaze back to her and leaned forward. “That depends on you, somewhat. I had long suspected that you were losing your taste for our shared mission.”

Understanding dawned on her. “That is why you sent my three best retainers with me to execute a simple, unarmed farmer. It was a test.”

He nodded. The tension seemed to warp the air between them. He had not answered her question. He pointed to the sword, still sitting on the table. “Do you remember that sword?”

She looked at it. The scabbard did look familiar. “Is it the one you had made for me after the Siege of Nakashibuchi?”

“Yes. A fine blade. One of the last ones made by Ishiwara Tetsu before his retirement. Have you lost your taste entirely for combat? Or would you like to hold it again?” He stared at her expectantly.

She demurred. “Perhaps after we’ve talked some more.”

His eyes glinted with a brief, hard light, and then he smiled. “Indulge me, wife. Let me see you hold it again.”

She felt the drum of his heartbeat, heard the buzzing of locusts and horse flies, smelled the anxious sweat before it had even broken on his brow. She set the scabbard on her lap, and carefully drew the sword. It’s blade was perfect, unsullied. The lantern’s light and the flames from the brazier dripped along its edge like liquid gold. It was a beautiful weapon.

“Have a swing or two,” he encouraged. “I think you’ll find its weight even more perfectly suited to your hand than you might remember.”

She smiled at him then. All of nature was beginning to shriek inaudibly as she stood up, setting the scabbard on the table, and gripping the sword with two hands, admiring it in the light.

She looked again at the trees. She was ready for what was about to happen.

She raised the sword above her head, preparing a downstroke toward Noboru where he sat. But her body turned in mid-stroke, and the blade went sailing down diagonally to her right side, and she heard the splintering sound of wood as she slashed six arrows out of the air. They had been heading toward her. She had not even seen them; only felt them. But she had turned them all to matchsticks in a single stroke.

Noboru sat in stunned silence.

“Dismiss your archers,” she told him calmly.

Before he could do so, another chorus of twanging bowstrings sounded in the trees, and another volley of arrows came toward her. Wielding the long blade with one hand this time, she could feel their approach in the wind, hear the whistle as the moved toward her, and again, with a single stroke, she shattered them in the air. 

Staring at her, he held a hand up, presumably to the archers that were hidden in the trees. “Stand down, Hajime,” he called out to them. “You may go.”

She was aware of six shadowy shapes emerging from the shadows of the trees and making their way slowly around the house.

She looked at him, and for the first time was aware of the sadness of their story. “You thought to make it look like I was making an attempt on your life, after you generously offered me forgiveness. You presumed your archers would take care of me for you. For all your cruelty, in the end, you are a coward, and you are alone.”

Over his shoulder, she saw the high road from Kurikotan. In the distance, it was lined with tiny pinpricks of light. It was impossible to say how many. Her eyes narrowed.

He refused to look away from her. “What is it?”

“Horses. Men. Torches,” she responded. “Why bring your army here?”

He still refused to look away.

In the impasse, the silence weighed heavy on them, and then, the sound of footsteps approached through the house, small and light. The shoji smacked open a little too hard, and a slender youth came running in, and then dropped to one knee in front of Noboru. “My lord,” he panted.

Noboru stared at him with a fierce snarl on his lips. “Out with it, boy.”

Yuko came running out onto the veranda after him. “Ushi!” she was calling. “I’m sorry, Lord Noboru, he ran past all of us at the front and–”

Noboru gave her a dismissive wave. “What do you want, boy?”

“My lord,” he gasped, “Yehadaka is in flames! The rest of your men are on their way here because they didn’t know where else to go!”

Noboru’s eyes bulged. “What?”

Ushi nodded, his head still bowed. He trembled, afraid to look up at his master. “Yes, sir, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it’s a disaster!”

“How?” Noboru demanded.

“I…I don’t know, sir. A… a fire in the stables, I think.”

Noboru growled, and then kicked the boy with disgust and shouted, “Get out of here!” The boy scampered away, and Yuko closed the _shoji_ behind them both.

His chest was heaving as he considered what he now faced. “You planned this.”

“How could I have? I’ve been under guard night and day for the past several days. Junichiro surprised us at the zendo. No, this has nothing to do with me. This is your own bad karma. This is what comes of polishing your sword instead of your soul.”

He seethed with rage. She could hear it in the rasp of his breath. “So now I have two thousand men coming here.”

She remained placid. She could feel, at the edge of her consciousness, the luminous spirit of Myoge, brighter than she had felt it in days. The silence that fell between them was long and pregnant. His jaw worked as he stared at her, trying to work out what would happen now. “If you wanted to run away from my men, I doubt I could stop you,” he said with disgust.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Why not?”

“Because, husband. I have never known someone so badly in need of the Buddha heart.”

He slumped into his cushion, still clutching the hilt of his sword.

The art of war, she knew, was to defeat your enemy without having to fight them at all.

They sat, and she watched over the edge of the veranda as his forces drew nearer, the pinpricks of light becoming glowing torches and the distant vibrations of footsteps and hoofbeats becoming nearer and more audible.Scents of burning pine and horse flesh made its way to them on the wind.

And then suddenly, after a seemingly interminable silence, Noboru spoke.“JUNICHIRO!” he roared.

The shoji opened again, and Junichiro entered. He glanced quickly between Shōshin and his master, clearly trying to assess the situation. “Yes, sir.”

“Gather your men with you, and solve this problem for me.” He gestured at Shōshin.

Junichiro looked surprised for a moment, but then vanished back into the house.

“Are you truly going to make me kill all your men?”

“But they’re not all my men. There are two thousand more on the high road. Even you aren’t that good.”

She got up and walked calmly to the edge of the veranda and looked up at the fingernail moon, at the end of its life cycle. She could hear its song on the warm, humid night air. She was aware of footsteps coming out onto the veranda, boots across the wood, set after set after set. She counted in her head as they came out.

“Inouye!” Junichiro called. “Our master has demanded a rematch!”

She didn’t turn around. “You and the twenty of you?”

“Yes.”

Her sword arm still hung relaxed at her side. She turned slowly and looked at them, one after the other, swords drawn and Junichiro with his ball chain sickle. She was ready for that, too, this time. Although they far outnumbered her, she could see them unnerved by her ease, each of them remembering those moments in which she could have taken one of their lives and didn’t. “And if I refuse to fight you?”

Junichiro was momentarily flabbergasted by the question. “Refuse?”

“It isn’t as though any one of you has offered me a formal challenge.”

“That’s more than you deserve,” he spat.

“Nevertheless, what if I refuse to fight you?”

He scoffed. “Then it will be over faster.”

Noboru chuckled. “Consider it a formal challenge, then. These twenty men may stand as my seconds.”

The veranda was wide and wrapped around the entire back of the building. Rather than being railed in, it was open, and descended down onto the garden with only two steps. At the bottom of the steps sat two maple trees, their trunks dappled with patches of green moss that had tiny white flowers growing out of it.

She looked at the menfor a moment and with a deliberate slowness, slid her sword back into its sheath and slipped it through her obi. “Had I known we were allowed seconds, I would have brought friends,” she said wryly.

She stood at one end of the veranda just before it wrapped its way around the corner of the house.The twenty stood assembled at the other. Noboru remained seated, watching them.

Suddenly, seeming unable to stand the tension of waiting any longer, one of the young men gave a fierce yell, and ran toward her, sword raised.

In a single fluid movement, she had sent him tumbling past her, nearly taking his own head off with his sword.This single moment seemed to spur the rest of them into action.

They ran at her, breaking into two groups, attempting to surround her. But she was like a cat, or like a temperamental breeze; difficult to follow, quickly changing directions, impossible to pin down. She ran at Junichiro as he took up his iron ball, pinned herself directly against his chest, and grabbed the chain as it was beginning to swing. She twisted it around so that the ball changed direction and struck him in the back, at which moment, she caught the ball and drew it around the front to wind it around his neck.

And all this, she did in motion, turning both of them in rapid circles so that the poking, stabbing points of various katana were digging into his back, not hers. She dropped to the boards of the veranda, rolled among the sea of black tabi boots, and stood up again behind him. He bled in several places already.

She pulled the ball with one hand and the wrist holding the sickle with the other, and his attempts to fight her off only succeeded in tightening the chain around his own neck. Soon enough, she was battling the other samurai with Junichiro’s choking, struggling form working like a rag puppet: she would swing his sickle hand and drive back an approaching warrior and simultaneously tighten the chain around his neck.

She felt him growing weak, and tossed him at a small knot of samurai running toward her from the front.They stumbled back in horror.She saw the sickle, swinging loose around his neck, arc around and plant itself in one of the samurai’s chests. She had still not unsheathed her sword and yet was aware that she had injured a dozen of them and that Junichiro was not dead but was probably not going to be alive for very much longer.

The best way to fight this many at a time was to use their momentum against one another; this was a simple, inescapable logic. Though she never had to have the conscious thought, she became the point of gravity at the center of a tide that moved back and forth across the veranda as she moved toward one group, lured them into charging her, and then got out of the way swiftly enough to see them go stumbling into the other group. In this way, she saw ten samurai killed though she had yet to unsheath her sword.

She leapt down onto the ground, landing in a crouch, her feet crunching in the pebbled path that cut a pale line through the moonlit garden.She smelled the perfume of the late-summer hydrangea and blooming red blossoms of the chrysanthemum. She smelled the blood of the wounded and dying. She felt the shift of the winds coming down from the mountains. Would she finally have to unsheath her sword?

She had the low ground, now.They would see this as a disadvantage to her and would come in with less caution than they should. Grasping two handfuls of the pebbles, she whipped them upwards into the samurai’s faces, and in the split-second during which they cringed, or howled in pain, she made her way to the maple tree nearest her.

She jumped up and grabbed a low-hanging branch, and swung herself up into its branches before they could make their way to her. They pounced after her, but she was quick as a rabbit, and ran along a branch while they poked their swords upward at her, to no avail. Weighted down with their armor, they couldn’t follow her up there if they wanted to. She was feeling quite comfortable fighting this fight without the use of her sword: it would have slowed her down and made the necessary maneuvers awkward to have one hand dedicated to the carrying of it.

The tree was still young, in relative terms, and as she ran out along its slender limb, her weight bent it and lowered her back to the veranda.

And now, the samurai were on the low ground.She decided it was time for her sword.The steel sang as she unsheathed it, and the samurai, who had been scrambling towards her, stopped. They fully absorbed the fact that she had taken down half of them with her blade still in its scabbard. The danger of their situation was beginning to impress itself on them.

After an awkward moment of them staring at her, the three at the front of the group charged at her. She knelt down, swung the three feet of tempered steel in her hand, and sliced across, shattering the black-painted bamboo armor on the torsos of the three most foolhardy of them. She heard the bright red lacing on their armor pop open as she sliced through them like paper. To their credit, they bravely continued to come at her. But they were slowed down by their wounds, and it took little effort to separate them from their heads with one more stroke.

She barely needed to look at them as she cut the rest down; she could hear the approach of their footsteps, their heavy, graceless breathing, could sense the intentions of their blades before they had even swung. She could hear Junichiro getting up behind her, struggling with his ball chain sickle, and coming at her again.

She turned to him, knowing that it was a risk to turn her back on the the three samurai who remained, but feeling that Junichiro’s tenacity was owed a moment of recognition. She sprang toward him, kicking him in the chest and knocking him to the deck. She planted her feet one on each wrist.

A blade came toward her back, which she deflected without looking as she stared down at him. “You were the best of my men,” she observed without sentimentality. “You could have been great.”

He spat. “Just do it right this time.”

Another set of footsteps ran toward her. She ducked down and heard a blade whistle over her head. She thrust her blade backwards, and it found purchase in someone’s flesh. They stumbled back, while she looked down at Junichiro. “I release you,” she said, and then opened his throat.

 _Mine is the hand,_ she thought. Two samurai remained, but they did not remain for very long.

Glancing around, she was somewhat relieved to note that Yuko was not among the dead. She wondered if Junichiro had not chosen her out of distrust or simply underestimation.

Noboru stood, looking around at the carnage. He declined to walk anywhere, as there was so much blood. He looked at her with genuine admiration. “It’s a shame,” he said after a moment. “But you’re too good. I can’t possibly allow you to live if you aren’t willing to fight for me.”

She picked her way across the boards and sat down across from him, spattered with blood. “You make the same mistakes that I once did. You seek power and glory to fill the space where love should be. That means you will never be satisfied.”

By this time, the property around the house was teeming with his men. They were flooding onto the land, swarming all around the house, looking for places to tie their horses and pitch their tents. He looked at her for a long moment. Then he called for the messenger, Ushi. The boy came running in a moment later, looking as breathless as he had earlier. Noboru leaned in quietly and gave him a lengthy instruction, and the boy ran away.

“You’ve told the boy to have the men prepare to face me?”

“Yes.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“May I have some time to prepare? It would only be right to grant me that, if I’m to face that many men alone.”

“Of course.”

A muffled cough came from behind the shoji.

“Who’s there?” Noboru demanded.

It slid open. Yuko was standing just inside the threshold.

“What do you want, Yuko?”

“My lord, I…”She came out onto the veranda and knelt down. “I’m sorry.” She looked up at Shōshin. “It isn’t right that you should be alone. I would like to be your second.”

“And what of your father’s fate?” Noboru demanded.

“Yehadaka is burning. The fire began in the stables. He is either dead, or there is nothing for him to do at your castle, my lord.” The girl’s gaze found Shōshin’s. “It would be an honor for me to die fighting for the great Inouye Aguri.”

Shōshin smiled at her.“My name,” she said, “is Shōshin.”


	58. Unexpectedly Soft and Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex does some damage with a borrowed weapon.

Astra’s internal, back-of-the-mind musings were interrupted quite suddenly, as a shape she barely had time to register hurtled into her and went slamming along with her into the back wall of the parking garage.

She felt the distinct pressure and then the distinct shift in her body’s makeup as it adjusted to the impact, and then she tumbled to the asphalt in a cloud of cement dust.

She sprang to her feet and saw her niece there, in that red and blue pressure suit that she’d seen her wearing in the broadcasts. She looked taller, brawnier in person, Astra thought. And blessed Rao, she had grown into a beautiful young woman.

Kara stood up and dusted herself off, and then stared at her. Astra waited for the moment of recognition to kick in. It only took a split second before the recognition and then the bewilderment crossed Kara’s face.“Aunt Astra?” she breathed. “But how?”

Astra smiled. “I wasn’t on Krypton when it died, little one.”

Kara was confused, clearly. “But why are you here?”

“Fort Rozz crashed here on Earth.”

Kara shook her head. “I mean, what are you doing here, in this parking garage? Do you… do you know the Hellgrammite we were chasing?”

Astra sighed. “Little one, he is one of my men, but it is a very long story. You should come with me, somewhere we can talk in peace and I can explain everything.”

Kara shook her head. “He’s a menace. He’s killed people!” Suspicion clouded her face. “Was he acting under your orders?”

Astra put her hands up. “Listen to me, Kara. I can explain those things.”

“I don’t think so,” Kara said, and rushed at her again.

Astra sighed. This was not how she was hoping their reunion would go.

 

 

******

 

 

Alex was scrambling to her feet to go jogging out to the other end of the lot where Astra and Kara were engaging one another. J’onn came around the corner and saw her.

“What the hell happened?” he demanded.

“Wish I could tell you. I managed to neutralize that guy–” She gestured over to where he lay, unconscious but still cuffed. “–but … we’ve got bigger problems.”

He frowned.

She pointed out to where Astra and Kara were now fighting in a blur of blue and black and red.

“Who the hell is that?”

“It’s the other Kryptonian.”She sighed.“And it gets worse. It’s Kara’s long lost aunt, the great General Astra. I heard about her growing up. Kara used to love her to death.”

J’onn shook his head. He drew his sidearm.

“That’s not going to do you any good.”

He shrugged. His eyes flicked down to Alex’s leg. She could tell he was able to discern where she was wounded.

“Fall back, Agent.”

“Not a chance. I’m not leaving Kara on her own with this one.”

He glared at her. “You’re killing me,” he grumbled for what had to be the fourth time that day.

“Give me the knife.”

“What?”

“I know you’ve got a Kryptonite knife on you, J’onn, give it to me.”

He shook his head. “No way, you’re not fighting a Kryptonian in that condition.”

“I might not have to. I just have to get close enough to her that plunge that in.”

“What makes you so sure you can?”

Alex paused. “I’ll explain later. Just…. Please trust me?”

Another crash came from the other side of the parking garage, where Kara had punched Astra and sent her hurtling into what was probably a load-bearing column.

“C’mon J’onn, the building can’t take much more of this.”

He grumbled something under his breath, reached into his belt, and handed her the sheathed knife. “Be careful with it. I can get more of that stuff but it’s all I’ve got right now.”

She nodded, unsheathed the small, glowing blade, and walked toward where the two Kryptonians were laying blows on each other. 

 

******

 

Astra could tell her niece was still inexperienced and in the early stages of whatever combat training she was receiving. She wasn’t guarding herself properly.

“If you would stop fighting me and listen!” she cried in frustration, and grabbed hold of the girl’s cape, and swung her around into a nearby wall of thick cement.

Kara smashed into the wall, leaving a spiderweb of cracks, and was on her feet again almost instantly. She was strong, Astra thought proudly, resilient. She was like the rest of the women on their side of the family.

“WHY ARE YOU HERE?” Kara demanded again.

“I was brought here by the gods,” Astra told her, “to save this world from itself.”

Kara shook her head. “Your guy has been killing people, do you realize that?”

“That is unfortunate. It was never my intention. But war often yields collateral damage.”

“You should have told me sooner that this was a war,” Kara growled, and rushed at her again.

Oh, she had spirit.So much of it. Astra could barely stand to fight her this way. Still, she wasn’t about to be brought down by her wet-behind-the-ears niece. She took a punch. It hurt, a little. Kara was strong. But not strong enough to knock her over with just one blow, the way she was probably accustomed to doing with most opponents. “I can teach you skills,” she shouted, blocking a second punch and sending a roundhouse kick to Kara’s stomach, sending her tumbling back. “You’re strong, little one, but your technique is as unrefined as Kal-El’s!”

Kara stopped for a moment. “What do you know about Kal-El?”

“I’ve been watching him. For years. I’ve been watching all the humans’ broacasts.”

Kara’s breath was heaving. She gathered herself for a moment. “So you saw me when I showed myself.” It had been about a month since that day, when Astra had first glimpsed what she thought was Kara after rescuing a crashing plane.

Astra nodded. “I was not sure it was you at first. But then when you started wearing the colors of the house of El, I knew it was you.”

Kara looked around. “So this is how you choose to reveal yourself? Have us chase one of your goons to a remote location and then pop out at me and my people? What’s your plan, here?”

Astra shook her head. “Once I realized that you were attempting to be a hero, I knew you would follow him. I hoped that we might have the opportunity to talk.”

“You couldn’t just, I don’t know, ring my doorbell or something?”

Astra was caught by surprise. After years, decades really, of covert operations, she had forgotten that simply showing up at someone’s door was even an option. It probably wouldn’t have been that hard to find out where Kara lived. She changed tactics. “Are you truly happy among the humans?”

Kara nodded. “This has been my home for a really long time, now. I have an adopted family, I have a life, and yes. I like it.”

“Enough to turn against your own family?”

Kara shook her head. “You’re not making sense.I don’t know what you want from me.”

Astra felt herself grow frustrated. “I want you to be who you are!”

“I’m a hero!” Kara declared.

Of course she was.

 

******

 

Alex approached them where they stood, seeming to have temporarily stopped fighting.

“You alright, Kara?” she called, moving as quickly as she could with her injured leg.

The two Kryptonians turned and looked at her. “Yeah, Alex, I’m fine, don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

Astra looked at Alex with amusement and then back at Kara.“Is that what you think?”

Kara nodded firmly. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Come elsewhere and speak with me then,” Astra pressed her.

“You can say what you need to say to me right here.” Kara wasn’t about to make any concessions, Alex thought proudly.

She continued to move closer. “You heard the lady,” she called. “You can say what you need to say right here, or you can go.”

Astra fixed her stare on Alex again, watching her approach with keen interest and something like surprise. “And who will make me leave if I do not wish to? You?”

“Stay away from her,” Kara growled.

Kara moved in, took a swing at Astra, and got knocked back into a steel beam that bent and began to buckle dramatically. A portion of the skylight where the beam joined its supports cracked and a deadly drizzle of glass sprinkled down.Alex put an arm up over her head and felt the little pieces of glass bouncing off the flak jacket she wore.She gripped the knife in her other hand. 

The next several seconds felt strangely compressed.

Kara extricated herself from the bent beam and lunged at Astra, knocking her onto the asphalt in a spiderweb of cracks. For a second, it seemed like she was going to beat Astra with her sheer force of will.But even on her back, it turned out Astra was dangerous. Alex could see that when Kara slammed down on top of her, that Astra had her knee tucked up to her chest.“Kara!”

But she wasn’t quick enough, and Astra had extended her leg and sent her flying up and back.

Alex launched herself at Astra, expecting that landing on her would be much like landing on a pile of rocks, as it had been when she and Kara used to horse around as kids. She braced for the unpleasant impact.

It wasn’t, though. It was… like landing on another person. For a half second, she had actually knocked the wind out of Astra. She felt soft, like a human. It confused Alex’s senses.

Astra’s eyes had that same feline hunger in them that they’d had when she first came upon Alex in the corridor. “What is your plan now, human? You have no weapon that can hurt me.”

Alex smiled. “Well, that’s where you’re wrong.” She brought her hand around, with the small glowing blade in it, and plunged it right into Astra’s shoulder.

The resulting shriek of pain shocked Alex. The way Astra convulsed underneath her, the agony in her face … she knew that Kryptonite did ugly things to Kryptonians, but she was somehow unprepared for Astra’s response. She drew back again, preparing to plunge the knife in a second time, but she stopped.Something held her back. The sense memories of star-crossed love weakened her resolve for just a moment. The hurt in Astra’s face, and her body feeling so unexpectedly soft and human… it was too much.

She didn’t hesitate long. Just two seconds. But it was enough.

Enough for another pane of skylight to shatter, and more glass to rain down, and Alex to feel the impact of a boot in her side. She was sent rolling gracelessly across the blacktop. She saw another black-suited figure scoop Astra up, and ascend through the broken skylight. There was no point to calling for a pursuit. By the time they scrambled a chopper, Alex knew that they’d already be long gone.

 

*****

 

In the arms of her husband, Astra was spirited back to Fort Rozz under cover of night. The vault of stars scrolled by above her. She ached with disappointment, and the wound in her shoulder throbbed.

And she had questions, so many questions about the human.


	59. To Odin's Hall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conflict between the Saxons boils over. So do Ardith's dangerously volatile emotions.

Ardith looked like a Dane.

She had fought like one, too, Ase thought, enjoying the particular intimacy of bandaging her woman’s wounds after they had fought together. The time they had spent sparring with wooden swords had no doubt improved Ardith’s skills, and her entrance on the hooked rope to stop the Swede from cutting the lines had been thrilling, if a little inelegant. The grace of moments like that would of course improve as she grew more accustomed to fighting. She had the heart for it, and that was the most important matter.

“So,” Bjorn said to her, as they sat on sea chests back on the Nagelfar, “how shall we split up to take the Havsorm home?”

“You’ll take the Nagelfar,” Ase decided without even blinking. “I trust no-one but you to see her home.”

“And the crew?”

Ase shrugged. “You need twenty to raise and lower the yard on the Nagelfar.The Havsorm can take ten.You may choose whoever you like so long as you give me Hilde.”

“You’re not sticking me with Harald,” Bjorn protested.

Ase chuckled. “Fine, you may tell Harald he rides with my woman and me.”

And that quickly, their fortunes had reversed. They had pushed into Suth-Sæxe when they had already done well in Francia, pressed their luck, and lost half their crew in a battle that had yielded little more than the three Saxons. Ase had nearly lost her life to a mutiny, but not only were they returning home with their full hold from Francia, but the Havsorm, a beautiful ship boasting the most intricate carvings and expensive metalwork. Suddenly, their losses were much more justified.

Harald came to her and crouched down in front of them, grinning.“Well, I suppose you were right not to sell the lads at Helder.” He thumbed in the direction of Jetta, who was drinking heavily. “He’s got quite an eye.”

Ase nodded, smiling at him.

He handed her a cup of mead, and she drank. “And the hooks were a boon as well. In truth, I’m not so sure I want to present these lads as gifts to the king. They’re too useful.”

Harald smirked.

She would not have dared say this if they hadn’t just succeeded in taking the Havsorm.

“Well,” Harald mused, “I suppose you could give him the Swedish ship.”

She drank some more. “I’ll decide when we get home.”

It was her way of indicating that the conversation was done.

 

*****

 

While Ase began discussions with the crew, presumably to determine who was going where on which vessel, Ardith walked over to Jetta, who was sitting on the Nagelfar’s bow, drinking. He had not been bound up again, presumably in reward for his performance against the Swedes.She was working into a second or third cup of mead by now, and feeling honest.

“You struck me,” she said accusingly.

“I’m sorry,” he answered, not looking up at her.

“No, you’re not.”

He looked up at her, offended. “What?”

“You did it on purpose.”

He glared for a moment and then shook his head. “You’ve gone mad.”

Wyne shouldered his way over.He had been on the Havsorm, helping the crew pull the hooks out of the wood and bring the ropes back over to the Nagelfar. He saw the tension immediately and said, “Now listen, we’re all alive and well, we ought to be grateful for that much.”

“He struck me,” Ardith said again.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to,” Wyne pleaded. “Heat of battle, and in the dark, no less. Come on, be sensible.”

“I should have struck your lover!” Jetta said churlishly.

Wyne groaned softly.“Jetta, that is not helpful.”

“She’s not my lover!” Ardith shot back. Her stomach was clenched into a fist, and the anger was rising into her chest. Her jaw trembled.

“This is twice you’ve saved her life now,” he pointed out. “You said yourself that when we were on the island that she had you and you enjoyed it. I didn’t strike you on purpose, but I’m not sorry I did! You’ve forgotten yourself. And if you’re going to act like a Dane, you’re going to get hurt like one.”

Ardith threw down her cup and lunged at him, drawing a fist back and pounding it into his face.Wyne leapt onto her and tried to drag her off of him.

“Ardith, don’t!”

But there was still violence left in her blood from the battle and she managed to strike him twice before Jetta pushed back and a couple of the other Danes stepped in and separated them.

Wyne and Brida held her back, while Karsi and another lad pulled Jetta away from her.

She got a look at his bloody nose as they hauled him further back toward the stern.

Ase came over and gestured to the other ship, speaking to her softly.Ardith wished she could explain what was happening, but she couldn’t. She felt the grip of Wyne and Brida release, and she let herself be led by the arm, back to the Havsorm, Ase speaking gently to her the whole while.She sat down on a barrell and stared blankly into the distance while some of the crew came aboard, and then she heard Wyne calling after her as the Nagelfar pulled away, sailing north toward Ase’s home.

The Havsorm’s sail was white and blue, and when it was raised to full height, it was fat with wind that had picked up over the last hour, pulling them briskly on the waves.

Ardith had time as they moved across the water to contemplate how strange it was to be without her friends. She felt a pang of regret at letting herself get so angry at Jetta, but wasn’t she right to be? He wasn’t sorry for wounding her in a battle? Still, he and Wyne were her friends and family, and she knew that if she had insisted, that Ase would have given in and brought them along.

These were not her people. This was not her language. The place they were going was not their home.Whatever Ase was to her, it didn’t matter. She was alone.

The mood on the Swedish ship was celebratory, and there was much drinking from the complement of mead that it had already been carrying, and some sampling of the foodstuffs from below, including a dried meat that they called _biltaung_ , which had a foreign and subtle spice to it that Ardith found she enjoyed. She kept drinking, because she didn’t know what else to do.

Ase noticed that she was starting to sag, and she came over with some heavy blankets and laid down with her on the deck. She felt warm kisses on the back of her neck, the strong arm holding her close, the familiar way that her good hand touched the front of her body, and she fell asleep to thoughts of having sex with her again. 

Her dreams were dark. She saw her own hands carrying a sword, but it was not Moonflame, and it was not Sköfnung.It was a strange, glowing green sword, like something a god might carry.She saw that she was standing on a rooftop, below which was a sea of tiny lights, and then on the horizon, the ocean. A soft rain was falling, and she could feel in the dream that her heart was pounding. 

She saw a soldier on his knees. She saw Ase —was it?— about to cut him down.Yes, it was Ase. She could see the white braid in her hair.

The soldier was a man who was not familiar to her. He was dark of skin, like Jetta. But also, in the dream, he was her father. 

Her father?That wasn’t quite right. But it was something like that. And Ase was about to take him from her.

In this dream, she lunged forward with her glowing green sword, and plunged it into Ase’sback, and she was shocked at how real it felt, the dull crack of bone and Ase’s cry of pain, and the point of the strange, glowing blade appearing out the other side of Ase’s body.It felt so real, the way Ase gasped, the way she crumpled to the rooftop at Ardith’s feet. 

She awoke, gasping, and found Ase there, soothing her. She couldn’t even make her mind try to sort out the Danish anymore. She sat up on the deck, clutching at the blanket, trembling.

There was no mistake. The dream was a message from the gods. Jetta was right. She had indeed lost herself. She was going to have to take herself back.

 

*****

 

Ase held Ardith until she stopped shuddering so violently and managed to reorient herself. “It’s alright,” she murmured, stroking her back, “everything is fine.”

Ardith seemed to need several minutes to remember where she was and who she was with.

“Whatever you dreamt,” Ase assured her, “you’re fine now.You’re safe with us. You’ve proven yourself and you’ve nothing to fear from anyone aboard this vessel.”

Ardith stared at her for a long time.

Then she leaned in, and kissed her hotly.

Surprised, Ase kissed her back, gripping Ardith’s shoulder and responding with equal passion. “What _was_ your dream?” she chuckled. “I’m starting to think it was not a nightmare.”

Ardith didn’t understand.She just continued to kiss hungrily, tongue working into Ase’s mouth, hands roaming from Ase’s face, to her neck, to her shoulders.She muttered something in English, and then slipped one of her hands up underneath Ase’s kyrtill, grabbing a rough, eager handful of her breast.

Ase gasped, and then bellowed, “All you bastards get up to the bow for a bit! My woman needs my attention!”

Something in her mind was uncomfortable, mumbling, T _his is not very like her, to have sex in the open._ But something wonderful was happening and it was hardly Ase’s nature to interfere with that.

The crew’s boisterous chuckling followed as they clomped up to the front of the ship to leave Ase and Ardith alone for a few minutes to enjoy each other.

Ardith’s kisses were aggressive, hot, and she was pushing Ase down onto her back. Grinning, Ase went along with this.It was lovely to see Ardith actively wanting her.It was all Ase had ever wanted since the beginning: not just to have Ardith, but for Ardith to truly desire it.Lying on her back on the deck, she looked up at Ardith, framed by pale moonlight and stars, looking down at her with desire and purpose burning in her eyes.

Ardith straddled her hips, leaned down, and kissed her deeply, and then sat up.Even through both their breeches, Ase could feel the heat between Ardith’s thighs.“My star,” she whispered. “You do want me, don’t you.”

“Yes,” Ardith whispered back. She moved herself slowly against Ase’s body, and the electricity seemed to crackle up both of their spines at once. Ardith leaned down again, repositioning herself a little, and continued to grind her hips against Ase’s, one hand nestled up her kyrtill, and the other… where?

T _his is not very like her,_ Ase thought again.

“Where is your other hand, my love?” she murmured between kisses.

The answer came a moment later.With pleasure welling up in her sex, she felt Ardith’s touch brush against her waist, and then heard the scrape of metal on leather that meant Ardith was drawing Ase’s knife from its sheath.

Ase knew that sound.Her flesh and blood hand had been resting on the small of the girl’s back, but her iron hand flew up to her own throat in time to catch the onslaught of a blade she knew well.It was the blade that Ardith had taken from her when she leapt upon Ingrid and killed her.

Instinct always moved seven steps ahead of thought and ten ahead of feelings, and she caught Ardith’s wrist with the metal hand.Ardith grunted in pain but didn’t let go of the knife. She was trying to push it down toward Ase’s throat.

_But why?_

There was no time to wonder that.

The girl had gotten her on her back. She had the weight of the world working in her favor.Ase pushed back with all her might, still not wanting to hurt Ardith although she didn’t understand why this was happening. 

“I only wanted to love you,” she said through gritted teeth, trying to push Ardith away.

The knife edge moved a little closer.

Ase thrust her hips upward, trying to shake Ardith off of her, her body in a state of simultaneous arousal and panic.Ardith pushed back against her, and for half a moment, Ase was unsure whether this was all a game, just sex. The pushing against each other, the raising and lowering of the knife, the press of their bodies against each other, became a strange, murky, violent thing that was neither sex nor combat.Not entirely, anyway.

She tangled her hand in Ardith’s braids at the back of her head, and yanked back. The steel of her knife gleamed in the moonlight.Ardith’s weight felt suddenly suffocating on her.The nearness of the knife’s biting edge to her throat was palpable.

Ase marshalled her strength, and pushed up.

She hadn’t meant to hurt her. She just want to subdue her. Wanted to get the knife away from her throat. But with Ardith’s head back, her throat was fully exposed, and the knife jerked up and away from Ase, and toward Ardith.

Horrified, Ase watched it bite into the soft, pale skin that she had kissed and bitten so many times on this voyage.

The girl’s fingers went slack and the knife tumbled to the planks.

Ase’s heart stopped for a moment and then went wild. A red slash ran across Ardith’s throat, and blood was pouring from it freely.She collapsed on top of Ase, and Ase cried out: “Hilde!Hilde! Help me!She’s bleeding!”

Ase rolled Ardith’s collapsed form off of her and sat up next to her, staring hopelessly at the girl’s face. She was already pale. She was not so much horrified as confused, as uncomprehending what had happened and what was happening.Desperately, Ase placed her flesh and blood hand over the weeping wound and called for Hilde again.

She heard the heavy footfalls of her second on this journey, running up to meet her.“Ase!”She stood over the two of them, panting, looking confused. “What in Hel’s name happened?”

“No time. She’s bleeding! Can you stop it?”

Hilde knelt down and shook her head. “I don’t think so, Ase. This is not a scratch.It’s very bad.”

The weight of those words tugged downward in Ase’s chest. Jorunn had said to her, _I see you slaying her._ So after all of this, had she been right? Was she going to lose the girl? She gazed down into Ardith’s pale face, kissed her mouth softly.Hilde was probably right.“There must be something you can do,” she said hopefully, but the words felt like sawdust in her mouth.

Hilde shook her head. “I can put a bandage on it but it’ll only slow the bleeding a little.I can’t make it tight enough to really stop it or it’ll choke off her air.”

Prophecies had a way of coming true, always.

“I only wanted to love you,” Ase said to her. “I know you don’t really understand, but I only wanted to love you. I wanted you to love me. That was all. I didn’t want this.” She took Ardith’s hand for a moment.Even as she was dying, she had a spark in her eye. The girl should have been hers. Even now, she felt that they had been made to love each other.

 

 

*******

 

 

Ardith gazed up at Ase.Everything felt cold. Was this taking back herself? She wasn’t sure now.

She would have failed anyway, she knew.Even if she had succeeded in killing Ase, what then? The crew would have killed her, sold her, done whatever with her.

Ase was saying things to her, but she didn’t understand them. She just knew she didn’t want to belong to anyone, didn’t want to be a slave, not even to a woman like Ase.She saw Freyja’s chariot with its great cats, somewhere in a very bright place in her mind.

She saw Ase take her hand.She was dimly aware that Hilde was trying to wrap a bandage around her neck.This struck her as funny, but she didn’t have the muscles to laugh at it. Then she saw Ase take a strip of the bandage cloth, and gripped Ardith’s hand in hers. She watched blankly for a moment as Ase wrapped the bandage cloth around both their hands.

Was she handfasting them? Was her intention to make of her a wife, rather than a slave?

Her heart sighed.It would have wailed but it lacked the strength. If only they could have talked more. If only they could have understood each other better.

 _My sword,_ she thought weakly, _where is my sword?_

 

 

********

 

“She’s not going to hang on very much longer, Ase,” Hilde said gently.

Ase gripped Ardith’s cold hand, hoping that she was aware that she had bound their hands together and hoping she understood what it meant. Ardith was shaking now, and Ase shook along with her, as the grief and hopelessness of the situation crushed in on her.

“Hilde,” she said quietly, “Bjorn told me why you quit practicing seidr.”

“Ase, no…”

“I want you to do the same spell you did for your sister and the man she loved.”

Hilde let out a sharp breath.“Ase, don’t you know what happened? I wasn’t able to make him love her, I just bound them together. Forever. You don’t want that.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” Ase snapped. “Bind us. Let me worry about whether or not she loves me.” Ardith’s eyes were staring at her, lids at half-mast.

Hilde’s voice wavered. “Ase, please… don’t ask me to do this for you… I don’t trust that I’ll do it right.”

But Ase would not be deterred. “I don’t want you to do it right. I want you to do it wrong, in exactly the way you did it wrong for your sister.”

Her second looked genuinely pained. “Ase…”

“You must. This only happened because she didn’t understand what she was to me.I must have another chance to make her understand.” You stared desperately at Hilde.“Only you can give me that.”

Hilde was shaking her head, but her resolve was clearly weakening under the fervor of Ase’s insistence.

“Hilde, I will give you whatever you want. Anything you ask will be yours. But do this, now, before we lose her completely.”

A long, agonizing moment followed in which Ase feared that Hilde would refuse.

Then, frantically, Hilde began to shout for those aboard who would have the things she needed.Guthrum had a chalk pipe and some leaf.She snapped the end off of an abandoned oar and took Brida’s knife, and began to carve some hurried runes into it.She ordered Astrid to cut off enough cloth from her cloak that Hilde could wear it over her head like a hood.She asked someone else to light enough torches to see by.

Ase watched, impotent, praying to her own gods that Hilde’s efforts would not be in vain.As she watched, makeshift though Hilde’s efforts were, she seemed to transform.She took a flint from someone, and lit Guthrum’s pipe, and breathed deeply of the smoke.It wreathed around her head as she climbed up onto a sea chest and, continuing to draw smoke from the pipe, she raised her improvised staff above her head in what looked like more like supplication than command. 

The winds died.

The sail fell slack against the mast.

Hilde chanted, her singing rounding over on itself till she was caught in her own rhythm. The pipe fell to the ground, but the smoke still lingered in the air, and the light of the torches cast her shadow, longer and taller than she, across the decking planks.

Ase knew that Ardith was dying, but Hilde would tie them together. They would get another chance to love one another, she hoped.

Hilde’s face was obscured beneath the makeshift hood.With one hand, she tore open her leather vest and exposed her breasts to the cold night air. Continuing to chant, she swayed, holding her hasty staff aloft with both hands now.The language she was chanting in became something that Ase had never heard before; it was something older, much older than Danish. And the voice? It did not seem like it was still Hilde’s voice.It seemed deeper, and darker.

The crew had fallen silent, standing around in nervous awe, keeping back from Hilde as if they thought she might suddenly explode.Ase wondered whether Hilde was receiving the spirit of Skuld in her body, as she had once before. 

Everyone knew that _seidr_ was dangerous, that it was a great deal of power for anyone to have.Even a God. Ase knew that it was reckless to call upon Hilde to use it for her benefit.

But she had no other choice.

She held onto Ardith’s hand, aware that it was ice-cold, but still, she could feel a faint pulse in the fingertips.She was hanging on long enough for Hilde’s magic to do its work, long enough to bind their fates together for the rest of time. That, Ase felt sure, would be long enough to make Ardith love her.

Ase was not sure how long this went on, but when it was over, the sun was coming up, the torches had burnt out, Ardith’s body was cold and void of life, and Hilde had collapsed into Harald’s arms, unable to speak.Ase was vaguely aware of him laying her down somewhere and placing something under her head.

Strangely, she did not weep.Though the grief bore down on her heavier than the sky itself, she did not weep. She told herself over and over, Hilde had bound them. She had tangled their threads. They would be together again.And again.And again.

Ase took Sköfnung from Ardith’s waist and placed it on her chest, then folded her cold hands over it. She would not have her woman die without her sword and not proceed on to Valhalla.Her brave one deserved to go to Odin’s hall.

Ase had expected to feel something when it was done. She had expected to feel as though a thread was attached to her, pulling her somewhere.

But then, she had always been bound up in the threads of fate, all of her life. She had never felt them before.Why would she feel them now?


	60. The Battle of Furuhime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The challenge is made, and answered.

Shōshin sat in the firelight on the veranda, in contemplation. She had asked Yuko to fetch her a staff to fight with, and had slid the sword back into its scabbard. It lay across her lap as she sat _zazen_.

Noboru sat across from her, watching with curiosity. Hours ticked by. Shōshin remained silent and calm. She was aware that the men assembled in the field outside the house were in their own state of preparation, slowly falling into formation as they awaited the time when she would face them. She was also aware that there was a mood of disbelief: _Are we really all assembling to fight one woman? Surely there is something we don’t understand._

Yuko came and brought her the staff that she had asked for. “Are you sure you don’t want any armor?”

Shōshin smiled. “No, thank you. I won’t be needing it.”

This made Noboru anxious and angry. “Why?” he demanded after a long time. “Why no armor? Are you that confident in your victory? Or your defeat?”

Shōshin looked at him. She could see how deeply he feared her. Just sitting there, she was a threat to him. Though she had assured him she would not kill him, he feared something that was, to his way of thinking, almost worse: that she was a threat to his power. “You can still save your men,” she said. “They don’t have to die because their _daimyo_ is a bullying child.”

He stiffened. “If you were anyone else…” he began, glaring.

She stood, taking the sword off of her lap and sliding it through her obi. “But I am not anyone else. I am Shōshin of Deepest Mountain, disciple of the Buddha and the vessel of his love. I have no fear of death, and I have no fear of you. You can still save yourself, husband. Renounce your power and go study zen. Polish your soul.Learn the true purpose of swordcraft. Cast off the tyrant and become a leader of men. You will thank me for it.”

He laughed bitterly. “What have they done to your mind in that monastery?”

“Sharpened it as keenly as this sword. Opened it as completely as the sky.”

She heard the first drumbeats outside the house, calling her.Having accepted his challenge, she gazed at him again for a long time.

“You were once the greatest general in the land,” he lamented. “In time, you and I together would have conquered everything. We could crush Kamakura now, while still in its infancy, and then take Osaka for ourselves.” He was angry, confused. He felt confident that she was about to die when she walked into that battlefield with only Yuko at her side, she could tell that much.“You could have cultivated your gifts to the benefit of both our ascendancy.”

She walked across the blood-soaked floorboards, careful not to slip. She placed a hand on his face and looked at him with sadness and sympathy. “I came by these gifts by letting go of my desire for ascendancy.” He was a handsome man, a skilled warrior. He had held her heart in his hands once. But now that she knew what love truly was, there was no longer anything for her in his house. “You can still save yourself,” she said quietly.

He jerked his head away from her touch, glaring at her. “Go and face your challenge. I promise you a military funeral.”

She didn’t bother to tell him that she could hardly care less what sort of funeral he thought he was promising her. She stood in the doorway and looked at him for a long, final moment.

At this moment, she heard shouts out in the field. The drums stopped for a moment. They looked at each other. What could be going on out there?She heard the whinnying of the horses that were tied to the trees and fenceposts, for lack of adequate stabling. A moment later, Yuko burst out onto the veranda, panting, her eyes wide with excitement as she stared at Shōshin. “A group of armed Zen monks and nuns has just arrived! They say they’re with you!”

Shōshin’s heart lifted. She had been right in feeling Myoge’s spirit drawing nearer. “How many?”

“Some fifty, I think.”

They had all come. “Have you spoken to them?”

“Yes. I told them what was about to happen, and they say they are all prepared to serve as your seconds.”

Shōshin smiled at her. “Thank you, Yuko.”She paused, looking at the girl. “You are free to step aside if you wish. It appears I have more seconds than I thought I would.”

Yuko’s jaw was set though. She reminded Shōshin of Keiko. “I’ll do no such thing.”

Shōshin nodded. “Then go and tell them I will be there shortly.”

Yuko nodded and ran off.

Shōshin looked back at Noboru one last time. “Not going to change your mind?”

“We’ve made our choices.” He looked resigned, more than anything else.

She turned away, and walked out to the front of the house.

 

******

 

When she exited the front of the house, she saw them; two thousand men, lined up in columns as if they were planning to face a similarly sized army on a battlefield. She took quick inventory. None were mounted, which had to have been at Noboru’s instruction.She saw a company of archers near the front.

The estate was nestled in a valley that stretched for fifteen acres, from the stone wall that abutted the Kurikotan high road to the bend in the Hashishina River. The river itself cut down through the property and divided it in half, the southern half being more heavily landscaped and, near the footbridge, boasted one very large white pine that stood nearly twice the size of the one that a scared, injured Aguri had hidden in at the zendo.

She saw the group from the zendo waiting for her now, beside that white pine. She strode through the columns of samurai.

Most of these men had served her at one time or another. As her eyes flicked over the group, she recognized several faces. She had little enthusiasm for what was about to happen.

She stopped in front of one very tall youth who wore red-laced armor and a helmet with horns on it that made him look rather like a large, fierce beetle. The sword sticking out from his hip had fine gold fittings, ornately engraved. He stood with his shoulders back, at the head of a company of forty. He would ordinarily be too young to lead a group, but the armor and weapon gave him away as the son of someone wealthy or important. “I know you,” she commented.

He looked down at her, barely able to meet her eyes. He nodded once.

“Your name is Hashimoto Daisuke. You fought in your father’s retinue. Hashimoto Kenshin, wasn’t it? I saved his life at Himeji.”

He nodded again.

“Do you have the stomach for this?” she asked.

“I’m told you’re a traitor.” His response was rehearsed and uncomfortable.

“So you stand as one of two thousand, preparing to take bring down the wife of your _daimyo_ and the woman who saved your father’s life.”She could see him flush, even in the torchlight. She smiled, clapped his armored shoulder, and before he could answer, she told him, “Good luck. I hope you live.”

He seemed surprised by this. But she had already moved on.

Yuko was walking behind her as she crossed over the footbridge and found herself in a circle of torches and familiar faces.Myoge was on the same white stallion that she’d ridden at the battle of the zendo. They smiled at one another.

“So,” Shōshin said, “you’ve brought everyone.”

Myoge laughed. “I left on my own. I got all the way to Yehadaka only to find that you hadn’t been taken there. I rode back to Kurikotan to take the road here, and when I was there, I ran into everyone else. Believe it or not, it was Senkō who insisted that the rest should come for you.”

Senkō, who was standing behind a few others, pushed her way up to the front. They shared a long moment of silence, and then Shōshin bowed to her. Senkō bowed in response.

“You should not be fighting with your wounded shoulder.”

Senkō smiled wryly. “You fought with your left hand for months,” she retorted. “I see no reason why I can’t do the same.”

Shōshin nodded, smiling. She turned back to Myoge. “So was it you that lit Yehadaka on fire?”

Myoge chuckled. “Not exactly.” She looked at Yuko, who was standing silently behind Shōshin. “Your name wouldn’t be Yuko, would it?”

Yuko started, surprised. “How do you know me?”

“I met your father at Yehadaka. He asked me to see to your safety.”

Yuko looked curiously at her. “What do you mean?”

“He knew I intended to come here to take Shōshin back. I suppose he expected that I might have to fight you, so he asked me to see to your safety.”

Yuko shook her head, laughing. “Well, I fight as Shōshin’s second now, so I don’t suppose you’re going to be able to keep your promise to him.”

Myoge’s eyebrow raised. “How did that happen?”

Shōshin tapped at the dirt with her staff. “It’s a longer story than we have time for.” She glanced around, trying to assess their situation quickly and work out how best to prepare. She felt sure of one thing, however: the fact that Myoge was here, and that the entire _zendo_ had come along with her, meant that she would not die today.

They extinguished their torches, and quickly discussed their plans.

 

******

 

Shōshin stood on the wooden bridge, with the roshi on her left and Myoge on her right. The night had gotten hazy and the moon was shrouded in cloud. Shōshin could only dimly see the shapes of the two standing with her on the bridge.

“You seem different,” Myoge commented in a low voice.

“The walk here was the longest _kinhin_ of my life,” she responded.

She heard Myoge chuckle softly. “And the student becomes the master, I suppose? You’ll have to share with me what you discovered.”

“You’ll see it in action soon enough, as you were kind enough to send my husband two thousand seconds.”

Their voices were soft, gentle, teasing, their tones so relaxed that one might not guess that they were heading into what seemed like a truly insurmountable fight.

The roshi sighed. “Save this for later, please. Focus on the task at hand.”

When she squinted, she could see Yuko’s shape crossing the footbridge at the far bank of the river. The girl had initially been displeased that she was being asked to go back into Noboru’s ranks, but Shōshin assured her that it was one of the most important roles she could play.Noboru’s men stood at attention on the other side of the river, some fifty yards back. She could see their dark silhouettes of jutting shoulder guards and horned helmets, row after row, and the dots of their torchlight.

The army’s drums pounded. It was time for the men and women of the cloth to relight their own torches and indicate to their opponent that they were ready to begin.Jōji and four others were emerging from the river, dripping, on their side of the riverbank.“Is it done?” the roshi asked.

They nodded and took their places. A moment later, their pine torches lit, and signaled their readiness to engage.

The lighting being poor would work to the advantage of those who practiced The Way. Shōshin had seen its power for herself now. She felt the vibrations in the soles of her feet as the ranks approached the bridge. The first small company broke rank and came forward; they marched five by ten, to the edge of the wooden bridge.

Shōshin recognized the warrior leading them. He was outfitted richly and of clearly high status. He spoke before they engaged: “Lord Noboru has informed us of your acceptance of his formal challenge. We give you a final opportunity to forfeit the match, yield, and submit yourself to his authority.”

She smiled. “If this is a formal challenge between him and myself, then where is he?”

An uncomfortable pause followed, as the lieutenant formulated his response. “We stand as his seconds.”

She shook her head. “No. I will not forfeit, nor yield, nor submit.” She gestured to her group. “As you can see, I have also brought my seconds.”

The lieutenant looked with some bafflement at her small band of warrior monks and nuns. In the flickering gold light of the torches held by two very young men, she could see, under the black shadows of his helmet, that he was embarrassed. “Then we begin.”

“Yes, we begin.” 

Shōshin, Myoge and Konjen Roshi backed up a few steps, inviting the lieutenant to make his first strike. He was joined by two more samurai, and together they approached across the wooden planks of the bridge. The drums continued from somewhere in the columns behind him. After a tense moment, he gave a wild yell and charged forward, sword drawn, with a man on either side of him.

He had clearly underestimated who he was facing. Only seconds later, he and the two samurai went tumbling over the sides of the bridge, separated from their heads.

A tense pause followed. Would the rest of the company attack them now?

They would.

 

****

 

Myoge watched the group comerunning at them, and in the dark of the Furuhime night, she laid her steel against theirs. In clusters of four and five, they ran toward her, Shōshin, and the roshi, and in rapid succession, were cut down. The entire company was vanquished within minutes.

Myoge saw that Shōshin’s skill was bolstered, indeed, by something else. She had indeed found something of The Way that she had not possessed before; it was evident in her grace, in her ability to anticipate in a manner that Myoge had not seen until now.As the ranks of the army grumbled among themselves, she and Shōshin shared a look. This was Zen too, fighting alongside one another and feeling each other’s movements and intentions without needing to look.

After a moment of indecision, another company came charging at the bridge and, in similar fashion, was dispatched. Myoge knew that they would grow tired of this soon enough. In fact, she and the roshi had planned on it.

A third company came forward, and in the midst of their waves of attack, their rear guard broke away and took torches, and lit the bridge on fire. They intended to take away the advantage of their bottleneck.As flames engulfed the bridge, the three of them decimated the last of the advancing warriors from that company, and retreated to the bank, watching the flames roar high into the night.

“Well,” the roshi commented, “now the proceedings will be very well lit.”

“How considerate of them,” Myoge agreed.

They now stood on the riverbank with the others, watching as the samurai assembled along the opposite bank and then began to make their march across the river. The water was high, as it could often be after the late summer rains, and at its deepest, the samurai would be up to their waists.As they neared the middle of the river, the monastics saw what they had been waiting for: the first line of samurai disappeared beneath the water.

Some of them might have been strong swimmers and might have managed to disengage themselves, but the next row of samurai was already weighting them down, having also fallen victim to the tripwires that the monastics had laid at the bottom of the river while the torches were out.Having made use of every last bit of rope they had, including the tacking from the horse Myoge had ridden there, and an extra coil that Yuko had stealthily retrieved from the stables, their tripwires covered several yards on either side of the burning bridge.

“This will slow them,” the roshi commented, “but it would be well if Yuko were to complete her mission soon.”

Shōshin and Myoge nodded in agreement.

The samurai realized what was happening and after several long minutes of chaotic splashing about in the water, they reoriented themselves and began to move across the river, walking on the drowned bodies of those piled beneath them. Their passage was not swift, owing to the uneven ground, but they resumed their advance.

“Jōji!” Shōshin called. “Now would be a good time!”

He stepped forth from the group with four other archers, and began to fire into the advance. The air was full of the sound of snapping bow strings, whistling arrows, the cries of men, and the sound of bolts finding their mark. They thudded into chestplates and thunked against the metal of helmets as they passed through eyeballs and into the backs of heads.

A quick mental count told Myoge that they had managed to fell a few hundred samurai thus far, making what was probably a far greater dent in Noboru’s forces than he had likely anticipated. However, they were now facing open battle where they could be easily surrounded, and not all of those in the zendo’s forces possessed both the skill level and the mastery of the ineffable that she, Shōshin, and the roshi possessed. Things were going to become much more difficult very quickly.

The archers fired accurately and in rapid succession, but the line of samurai coming across the river was long, and eventually, the samurai began to make their way up the riverbank. Shōshin led a line of ten lancers to the riverbank and began to stab at those emerging from the water, with some success. Still, the slow, inexorable crossing was happening, and then Yuko’s success would be critical.

When the parts of the samurai line that were unbroken began to emerge, dripping, onto the riverbank, the roshi called for the retreat, and the lancers drew back. Jōji and the other four archers quickly scrambled up the branches of the massive white pine, positioning themselves above the reach of any lances that might be jabbed at them.From their new position, they continued to fire bolts into the samurai’s currently disorganized ranks.

In order to avoid being surrounded, the monks had to now break into a new formation. The roshi led one flank around the outside of the samurai’s numbers, dashing at top speed with twenty five warriors and nipping at the column’s ragged edge in what was effectively a cavalry run. His sword flashed in the light of the burning bridge.

Myoge and Shōshin led the other half of the group, and effected the same maneuver at the opposite end of the samurai line.Unable to see the roshi and his group, they leapt into the fray and dashed to the end of the line, picking off samurai as they were able. Myoge and Shōshin were at the lead, with those wielding lances fanned out behind them, able to stab past the two warriors at the head and do damage that way.

Myoge wondered how many arrows the archers carried with them. Surely they must be running low by now. 

She felt the report of a musket before she heard it.

It came from somewhere in the middle of the samurai line. She saw the branches of the pine shudder, and it became clear that whoever the musketeer was, he was taking aim at the archers in the tree. He had to be in the middle of the line because otherwise he’d be firing on one of the two cavalries, but he was clearly afraid to do so.

The smell of gunpowder stung her nostrils. “The group is yours!” Shōshin called to her. “I have to stop the muskets.”

And before Myoge could object, Shōshin broke away and tore down the edge of the line, toward the place where the shot had echoed from.A second shot rang out, and more of the stinging smell of gunpowder.But she couldn’t abandon her group to help Shōshin or the archers. The most important thing she could do was remain here with them.

She breathed deep, and abandoned her last vestiges of holding on to her illusion of self. Roaring like a wild beast, she leapt forward, leading her group down the samurai line and trusting her sword to know its way. She could feel Shōshin’s spirit, and it was her refuge as she tore into the samurai line, running down its side, shattering their spears as she went.She dove into a weak spot in the line, supported by lancers on either side of her, slashed without even looking, and dashed on. She was so fully outside of herself that she could not feel her exhaustion. She could smell the blood and horseflesh, and she heard more musket fire.

Horseflesh?

The sound of horses, several of them, splashing through the river.

Had Yuko indeed succeeded? Or were they finished?

She darted out from the line to see what she had hoped: Yuko, riding alongside the young man whose armor gave him away as Daisuke, at the head of several retainers. And at the front of the group, a figure of such opulence and arrogance that it could only be Noboru.

 

*******

 

The fighting ceased momentarily as the lord of Yehadaka rode in, escorted by Hashimoto Daisuke and a retinue of fifty.Shōshin looked up, smiling. “Good of you to join us, husband. It seems your seconds became overly excited and began things without you.”

“Yes,” he said sourly, dismounting his horse, “Daisuke was good enough to inform me that this challenge had begun without me.”

What had happened was this: Yuko had gone and found Daisuke, and implored him to take his retinue and escort Noboru to the field. Her argument for this was simple. His lordship had issued his wife a formal challenge. As such, it would look poorly that the battle had begun when his lordship was not even on the field.

Now, she went on, it was possible that in his grief at his wife’s changed loyalties, that he allowed his emotions to overwhelm him and was sitting inside, lacking the fortitude to come forth, but for the sake of his own honor, he must obviously be brought out to the battlefield in haste. It would not do for people to talk about how Yorihime Noboru allowed his entire retinue of two thousand fight his challenge for him without so much as showing his face. It was Daisuke’s duty as one of his lieutenants to take his men and bring his lordship out.

Daisuke, being as desperately uncomfortable with this situation as Shōshin had suspected, had gladly followed Yuko’s very wise, very helpful advice.

“You can still save yourself,” she told Noboru as he drew nearer.

He spat. “This was a clever maneuver. But why bring me here if not to kill me?”

“I told you,” she said, “you have the opportunity to become something better.”

He drew his weapon, a longsword styled in the ancient way, double-edged. “You brought me here only to humiliate me, nothing more.” And then he rushed at her, his weapon raised.

She met his steel with hers, holding him at bay.“You have humiliated yourself.”

He dropped his stance and disentangled himself from their standoff, and then dove back in. He was a better fighter than this, she thought. He was being sloppy, careless. Their steel rang again and again as they circled each other.Noboru understood that she had no interest in killing him. He was trying to use this against her. He was making wild swings, understanding that she would be more interested in defending than in attacking with equal force.

“I would not speak that way if I were you!” he roared.

“You would not speak the truth?” she demanded, deflecting another of his blows. “Your castle, the seat of your power, is a pile of ash.” 

He swung in again from the left in a wide, careless arc, leaving himself open to a strike that she refused to take.

“You baited your wife into a false assault and had archers fire on her from the trees, like a coward!”

He drew his sword back and swung again, this time from the right. She batted his sword away as if she were swatting a fly.

“You issued a formal challenge and then sent your retainers in to do your dirty work!”

He jabbed at her in a frontal assault but she leapt out of the way, daring him to pursue.

“And your retainers have already been whittled away.You have lost a quarter of your forces to fifty zen monks and nuns!”

He glared at her, panting, and for a few moments, they circled one another.The whites of his eyes were wild in the light. He looked like nothing so much as a cornered animal.

“Then strike me!” he roared at her. “If I’m so contemptible, strike me down!”

She shook her head. “You can end all of this in an instant.” She held her sword out in front of her, the Ishiwara Tetsu blade that had been made just for her. “Do you know the true purpose of Japanese steel?”

He bared his teeth, circling left, and left, and left. 

“It’s not to simply kill men,” she explained. “Tetsu told me that his blades were a mix of the firm steel, and the steel that bends, two varieties, because both qualities are required to lead. Japanese steel is meant to govern a nation.”

She knelt down then, her sword pointing up towards him.

“I only want you to be a good man. For your own sake, and for the sake of the nation and its people.”

“You want my shame.”

She could see now, in the way that he staggered slightly as he was circling her; he had drunk some sake while inside the house. He was not in his right mind. His sloppiness was due, in part, to drink.“No. I want you to become a good man.”

He came forward.“I…” he growled, “…am not a good man!”

He knew it. He had always known it. Was this truly the first time that anyone had asked him to be ashamed of it?

She would never know the answer to that.He stumbled forward, and his boot caught on one of the roots of the great pine, and he tipped forward, landing on the point of her sword and driving it into his stomach. He dropped his weapon and gripped her shoulders. “I was never a good man.”

She gazed into his bulging eyes, at the contortion of his face.“I know,” she whispered.

“And I never loved you.”

“I know that too.”

“And yet you refused to kill me.”

“Yes. Because it would have been better to save you. But you seem not to want that.”

And they remained thus, for several long minutes, as he leaned forward against her, stubbornly hanging onto life. She stayed, watching his spirit depart him.It was both the least and the most that she could do for him now.

“As your wife,” she told him quietly, as his eyes grew dull, “I will ask to have you ordained as a Buddhist monk, in hopes that it will help your karma after death. I will ask that your dharma name be Enkyō, the Burning Bridge, in recognition of the place of your death, and the manner in which you lived your life.”

“Zen nonsense,” he croaked, his voice faint.

“Yes,” she agreed, her voice tinged with grief and resignation, “Zen nonsense.”

_Mine is the hand that ushers you on._


	61. At Cross Purposes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so canon concludes. Or rather, it begins.

They’d been after the guy for weeks.

Alex was in the back of the black SUV, with J’onn driving, and the window open with half her body hanging outside of it. She gripped the window frame with one hand and with the other hand, had her Glock trained on the individual who was currently perched on the roof of the vehicle that they were running alongside, whizzing fifty miles an hour past the speed limit on the elevated freeway that ran along the coast.

They’d been weaving through traffic for a solid ten minutes as he sprang from the roof of one vehicle to the next. His jumps were decidedly non-human in their distance and accuracy.

She squeezed off a few shots, and the guy cackled and threw himself off the vehicle and over the railing on the side of the highway.Alex squeezed off a couple more ineffectual shots and then swore.“Kara, can you see where he’s going?”

She glanced to her right, where her sister was in flight beside them. Kara was in her blue and red performance suit with her cape fluttering out behind her, squinting into the wind. She nodded and broke away, making a few circuits in the air above where he’d jumped off.Alex heard her surprised voice in the earpiece. “Alex, the Southmerrow Monorail has been defunct since the Incident, hasn’t it?”

J’onn cursed under his breath.He was already steering toward the closed exit that would take them across the long bridge to Southmerrow Island.

Alex frowned. “Are you telling me it’s not?”

“Uh, not at the moment,” Kara’s voice said in her earpiece.Alex slid back into the vehicle in time to plant her ass in the seat as J’onn brought their vehicle crashing through the wooden barriers that had been placed at the ramp’s entrance to keep people from taking the exit to Southmerrow.

Alex winced a little at the crunching sound and ducked a flying slat of wood, but then continued to crane her neck out the window as J’onn swung the SUV over and guided it onto the bridge.Kara wasn’t wrong; there was a single monorail car with its lights on, zipping quickly across the monorail bridge, which ran perpendicular to the elevated freeway, underneath it.

“Where the hell is he?” Alex demanded as they went whipping across the bridge. Minutes ticked by as they made the long trek out.“J’onn, are you sure Southmerrow is safe for us? I mean, the radiation and…”

J’onn shook his head. “It’s not a desirable situation, but we can de-con when we get back. You wouldn’t want to live there but we’re okay for an hour or two if necessary.” 

Kara’s voice crackled in her earpiece. “I don’t… wait! I see him. He’s … he’s jumping out the back of the monorail car!”

Alex pounded a fist against the side of the door. This guy was hard to catch. He wasn’t faster than Kara, but damnit, he was slippery.

There wasn’t much on Southmerrow anymore. Ten years ago it had been a little enclave of Silicon Valley weekenders’ condominiums and expensive organic taco shops. After the mysterious crash of the “UFO” that nobody could seem to find afterward, the island’s main transformer had been blown, buildings had been leveled, and nobody could explain why or figure out what had done it. People didn’t really stick around after that.

So Alex found herself in hot pursuit of an alien hostile, heading to an island that was mostly husks of condominiums and high-end shopping plazas with nothing inside. “Is he on the ground?”

“Don’t see him. Best guess is this parking garage directly under the monorail bridge where he jumped off. Looks like there’s a few ways in from the roof.”

Alex frowned.

“I’m going in,” were Kara’s next words.

“Hold on,” Alex said sharply.“Don’t just go rushing in, it could be a trap.”She started running scans of the building in question. “I think our guy has control over his body temperature,” she commented, scowling at the screen installed in the SUV’s dash. “Because I feel like I see him for a second, but then I don’t. He’s keeping it low to stay incognito.”

“Great,” Kara grumbled.

This particular hostile had been very active in the last few weeks. They weren’t entirely clear on all of his capabilities but he’d left a trail of dead security guards in his wake at various chemical plants in the surrounding area.

Something gave Alex pause as J’onn was swinging around to the building. “Hold on. He’s not alone in there.” She saw another person in there. Their heat signature was a very specific temperature: 100.7 degrees. “I see a second bogey. Kryptonian, I think.”

“What?” Kara’s reaction stabbed through Alex’s earpiece.

“Yeah, you heard right,” J’onn responded.“Kara, come in through the roof, Alex and I will come in through the front.”

Kara huffed, but said, “Copy that.”

 

 

***

 

 

J’onn and Alex entered the cavernous mouth of the parking garage, whose lights had long since died. They glanced at each other. “You should go up top and support Kara,” she whispered.

“You are not taking this guy by yourself,” he hissed back.

“Look, if it goes sideways you guys are right there. We don’t know who that Kryptonian is, Kara might end up needing you more than I do. And you’ve got the knife.”

J’onn shook his head. “You’re killing me.”

“You know I’m right.”

They crept forward, sidearms drawn.

He grimaced. “Yeah, I know.” They nodded once to each other, and then he broke away, heading up the stairwell to their right.

She inched forward into the big, dark, empty space. She listened carefully for movement.

“Can’t see a damn thing,” she heard Kara muttering.

Then, she heard a shuffling from the other side of the lot. She moved soundless across the asphalt, her ears pricked up to hear it again.Sure enough, a moment later, she heard footsteps.Just a few, and then they stopped. She could see on the other side of the large, yellow, cement bollards that another stairwell lurked in that pool of shadow in the corner. With a grim set of her jaw, and an image of her own demise firmly in her mind, she followed the steps.

They would come, a few at a time, and then stop. She would pursue, her boots noiseless on the concrete, and then wait. Into the stairwell, she followed them. She dared not indicate anything to J’onn and Kara on the headset. Achingly slow, she moved up the steps, a little at a time. It was him. It had to be. He had to know at this point that he was being followed.

She gripped her weapon and moved up until she emerged onto the third floor. She paused before coming out of the stairwell, checked her breathing, remembered that she feared nothing, and then stepped out.

She felt his presence before she heard him again. She felt his bulk hurtling toward her out of the darkness; she perceived his face only a little, but saw it do something that humanoid faces were not supposed to do. His lower jaw had split open and each half of his exposed mandible bore a long, spiky tooth. 

“Jesus,” was all she had time to grunt before he was upon her.

She tumbled to the cement, but recovered quickly, in a low stance that allowed her to duck him when he made a second attempt at tackling her to sink his teeth in.He instead sprang over her head, knocking her back, and her head hit the concrete with a dull thud. A split second later, she heard a dreadful crunching sound.

Her earpiece had fallen out, and he had just stomped it into fragments.

He chuckled, and fell on her again. This time, he had pinned her on her back on the concrete. He reached a hand down to yank at her thigh holster, she assumed with the intention of disarming her, but then she felt something sharp and painful dig into her flesh. Did he have more of those pointy, spiky teeth elsewhere? Instead of cursing, she reached for the sutras, reached for her calm, and then reached for her high voltage taser which was hooked to her belt. She flicked it on with one hand and jammed it upwards into his leg.

A rope of blue electricity shot up his body and he fell to one side, convulsing.For good measure, she hit him again with it.

It did not seem to agree with him.

She checked his pulse. There wasn’t one, at least not where she could find it.He had killed, and would likely have killed again, and she had done her duty, but she always preferred to capture rather than kill if it was possible.

Exhausted and hurting, Alex was sprawled out on the cement. She struggled to draw herself up into sitting position, and spat a little blood out. Wouldn’t be the first time, and probably not the last. She would take a moment to give respect to the life she had taken, and then pull herself together and find J’onn and Kara.

She looked at his limp form. _Mine is the hand that has ushered you on._

She unclipped the reinforced titanium cuffs from her belt, and put them on him, just to be sure. He seemed dead, but one couldn’t be too careful.

At this moment, a figure emerged from the shadows; tall, broad shouldered, dressed in practical, tight-fitting black clothing. She had a piercing gaze, a confident gait, and a streak of white in her long, dark hair. Alex’s breath caught in her throat. She knew that face. She had seen it hundreds of times in the belly of the DEO. 

“I’ve been waiting a long time to get one of you alive,” the woman purred, moving toward her at a leisurely pace. Her voice echoed off the hard walls and oozed rich and low like honey. It was a voice that made something quiver in Alex’s gut, and not only due to the unexpected familiarity of its timbre.

Alex blinked. Hard. “Alura?”

The woman froze, looking stricken. “How do you know that name?” she demanded.

“I’ve seen you… seen your face.In the AI that you sent to Earth with your daughter,” Alex panted. She had a far different look to her, and it wasn’t only the streak in her hair or the severe military clothing instead of the judicial robes that Alex was accustomed to seeing her wear. Her entire mien was different. She was muscular, predatory, dangerous. Alex shivered.

The woman’s confidence took a moment to reset itself. “That was my twin sister,” she explained coolly. “My name is Astra.” She resumed her forward motion, stalking toward Alex and looking at her as though she was something to eat. “And what’s your name?”

Alex breathed deeply and remembered her training. All of it. _Be calm. Be a benefit to all beings. Trust in the dharma. Kill her only if you have to._ She stared back at her, eyes smoldering, saying nothing.

Astra chuckled a little. “Brave. A credit to your species.”

“You don’t have to kill me,” Alex said, as Astra came nearer and crouched down to get to eye level with her. “Or anyone else in National City.”

Astra’s mouth curled in amusement. Her eyes raked over Alex as though she was seeing straight down into the darkest parts of her mind. “Kill you? I’m here to save you.”

She reached out then, and touched Alex’s cheek, and for the briefest moment, Alex was beset by something she couldn’t explain. Visions, hallucinations, implanted memories? She couldn’t tell. But a rush of them came pouring into her head, a torrent of images, snippets of sounds and words, emotions that came and went. 

She stood on a ship underneath the stars, a Viking ship with a great dragon head and a red sail and the captain of the ship was dressed in leather and smelled of pine and sweet beer and–

She wore the robes of Zen Buddhist nun and held a wooden staff and stood on the field of battle in the smoke from the burning cryptomeria trees and someone was beside her and calling out her dharma name and–

She saw her hands and they were a man’s hands and she was dressed in blue and carrying a bayonet and weeping in the dirt and mud of Virginia over the body of a Confederate soldier and–

She was holding the hand of her lover as they rode out of New Orleans in a Studebaker with twenty dollar bills flying out of the window, laughing and kissing each other because they had committed a perfect crime and–

She was making love to the captain of the Viking ship.

She was making love to the Zen Buddhist warrior beside her.

She was softly kissing the Confederate soldier who tasted of bourbon and lost causes.

She was slipping out of her meter maid’s uniform to crawl into bed with the bank robber.

She saw northern lights.

She saw the showers of cherry blossoms in spring.

She saw love on the battlefield over and over and over again. Love where it didn’t belong, she thought, yet here it was. Over and over. Futures and pasts held together by a single long thread.

She saw death, smelled it on hot breezes and watched it run red in the ruts of fields. Sometimes she killed those lovers, those lovers on the wrong side of a war, and sometimes her lovers killed her. Sometimes she saw herself manage, when the circumstances were right, to neither kill nor be killed. Innumerable lifetimes poured into her head, their smells and sounds and feelings as vivid as if they were happening now, in this very moment. Steel in her hand, wine on her tongue, blood in the air, sex on her lips.

And always, her lover was the same. No matter what body they happened to inhabit, they were always the same.

_What is this? Whose stories are these? Why now?_

 

 

*****

 

Astra didn’t know what had moved her to touch the human’s cheek. Admiration? Curiosity? But the brief moment of contact felt eternal now, and she was lost in a wave of inexplicable feelings that were unmoored to the events unfolding in front of her; desire, despair, passion, affection, confusion, longing, fear…Her head was jammed all at once with sense memories she couldn’t process and had no context for.Too much signal pouring through not enough bandwidth.

From the depths of her mind, as she lingered in the moment of contact with the human, she recalled the story, the myth of Nightwing and Flamebird, from long before Rao became the One God. It unraveled itself in her head, spooling out bright against the dark of her mind. Flamebird was the being that Rao had created from the fires of supernovae, whose task was simple; to burn down the world when it became too corrupt and needed to be rebuilt in the hands of Vocc the Builder.She was not quite a god, but more than an eldritch spirit.

But Rao had made a miscalculation. In the time before time, Rao still made mistakes, and this is one reason why the old stories had been designated myths. Rao in his wisdom had fashioned a flaming bird, mighty and boundless, from the fires of exploding stars, and she was fearsome and perfectly formed to his mission. Except he made her so that she burned too hot, and was too eager to burn the world down. She would do it before it was time, if he couldn’t devise a way to tame his creation.

So Vocc the Builder created another vast bird from the coldness of space and the darkness of black holes, and this bird, he fashioned to love the flame bird. This bird was meant to ensnare the flame bird’s heart; in turn, the night bird would embrace the flame bird, temporarily quenching the flames with its great black wings that sparkled with crystals of frozen planetary gases. _Wait, my love, wait. Stay with me._

And so for a few centuries more, the flame bird remained wrapped in the night bird’s wings, and they loved one another fiercely. But Krypton became more corrupt, and eventually, even the flame bird’s love for the night bird was not enough to restrain the flame bird. It was past time. She destroyed Krypton.

And this was how Krypton would be reborn.

Vocc the Builder grieved the destruction of the world he had worked so hard to create. But he built the world again, and again the flame bird returned to destroy it. Again, he brought forth the night bird and they found one another, and loved one another despite being at cross purposes. But again, Krypton eventually was destroyed.

A love like theirs was both fated and doomed; they were designed to love each other, but also constructed from substances that could snuff each other out if the balance of their embrace was not just so. But always, in the end, after millennia, the world would burn. In hopelessness, after many cycles of rebirth and destruction, Vocc the Builder cast both the birds far from Rao’s reach. He cast them to another star system, where there were many other gods with their own plans. He had saved his next creation, or so he thought.

Rao was angry. He compelled Vocc the Builder to build the world one last time, and then he shattered Vocc the Builder into dust.

That had always been the end of the myth. It had never occurred to Astra until this very moment that Rao and Vocc had unwittingly conspired to Krypton’s final destruction. _Neither of them understood the consequences of their actions._

Krypton’s death was inevitable. Vocc was not able to stop it, even if he cast the birds to a distant galaxy. If the flamebird did not burn Krypton down, Krypton would burn itself.

With Vocc the Builder gone, Rao had no-one to rebuild Krypton again. 

 _The birds,_ she thought. _What became of the birds?_

 

******

 

Alex knew that only a split second passed as Astra’s fingers grazed her cheek.Yet it was lifetimes of memories that were suddenly shoved into her mind and she had no explanation, no defense.

It had to be Astra. Somehow, it had to be Astra.

Her heart pounded. Her blood raced. It made no sense to have a hundred lifetimes she didn’t remember, sensory experiences, emotions, all crammed into her head at once. Visceral memories of love in the midst of war and always, always the same lover.

It was always Astra.Somehow, it was always Astra.

How could that be? 

The strangest part was, that for that split second, she wasn’t afraid. In that moment, when Astra touched her, in the midst of that flood of experiences that were not her own, she felt something else.

Hope.

Hope?

It would always descend, a love in a place that love wasn’t supposed to grow, and amid the tragedy, amid the conflict. It would often end in grief, but every now and then, it wouldn’t. How could one help feeling hope? Even if these weren’t her memories, her emotions, she wanted for these lovers to find one another.

And then she caught her breath. She remembered where she was; in a parking garage, on the cement, facing an enemy. She jerked her head away from that touch that had brought that sensory flood with it. She remained taut, armed, ready to fight.

“Starflower?” Astra muttered.

Alex’s stomach lurched.

 

 

*****

 

 

The phrase came to Astra in a jumble of others and she felt it was important, though not sure why. It tumbled from her lips as the human stared at her with eyes that reflected back the sudden shock to the soul that she herself was feeling now.

“How do you know that name?” the human demanded, her voice shaking.

Astra shrugged. It had come to her through no effort of her own. “We cannot take away what the gods give us.”

The human frowned, seeming confused, angry and ready to spring at her.

“What does it mean, that name? Is it yours?” Astra asked her.

The human wouldn’t say.

But it didn’t matter.She had a mission. The tangle of inexplicable emotions didn’t matter. The jumble of myths in her head didn’t matter. The fate of the birds didn’t matter. Did it? After all, why had she thought of it now, when she had touched the human? _It doesn’t matter,_ one part of her mind said.

But another part of her mind wanted to know, nagged at her as she knelt here: _But what happened to the birds? What if Vocc sent them here, to Earth?_

What frivolous thoughts. Who cared if he had? She was in the middle of conquering a world so that she could save it. She was inexplicably hungry for the humans’ surrender. And for some reason, this human in particular.

The human’s dark eyes burned. Astra couldn’t explain why, but she felt a sudden strange, rising hope as they stared at each other.But even as she prepared to take the fierce, brave human captive, she couldn’t help wondering, in a corner of her mind:

_What became of the birds?_


	62. My Love, Be Still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ase's story concludes, and this story stitches itself to the others.

Ase’s eyes were weary, but wouldn’t close. She ordered Harald to bring them ashore at the nearest opportunity.They were along the Danish coast now, so they found a small bay near some wildlands, and went ashore with Ardith’s body.Everyone knew well enough to leave Ase alone, only speaking to her if absolutely necessary.

In silence, they found enough deadwood to pull together a pyre.Ase selected the grave goods herself. Ardith would be buried with Sköfnung, wearing the blue stone on the silver chain. Ase cleaned the body as best she could, found a fresh _kyrtill_ , and changed her into it. It was a little large, but it worked well enough. The green of it would have looked very fine with her dark eyes.Ase wished they were on the Nagelfar, because there were other things she would choose, but she looked through the stores on board the Havsorm and found sufficient gold, food, and mead to send her lover on to Valhalla in a manner befitting the wife of a jarl.

Then she took off her own cloak and wrapped it around Ardith, fastening it around her neck to cover the wound. Hilde had helped her to stitch the wound shut, but Ase decided that she wished to hide it altogether.

She had wanted Ardith to accept the gift of her cloak. Now she would wear it into the next life.

She knew that the crew had never thought that any of it was a good idea. But they had, with the exception of Ingrid, followed her to the last.She knew that if any one of them had the courage, they’d have said, “All of this was ill-fated,” but none of them did, because they knew they’d find out what it was like to be strangled to death with an iron hand.

All of these processes gave Ase time to consider her grief.On that one brief night when they were able to understand one another, Ardith had cried bitterly, saying that she wished that Ase had simply chosen to woo her instead of raiding the village and taking her.But how could she have done? Ase couldn’t say how the Saxons did things, but surely no Danish father she had ever known would part with his daughter at the request of a foreign warrior who didn’t even speak the same tongue.

Had Ardith truly not understood that she had felt love for her? That they had been fashioned by the gods to love one another? That the desire she felt in spite of herself had been put there by divine hands? It occurred to Ase that not once in that evening had she confessed her love in so many words, not once did she make herself clear that she intended to make a wife of her. Not that it would be called that, but their meaning to one another would have been the same.

Not once.

But Hilde had seen to it that she would have another chance, in the afterlife.She would not make that mistake next time.

Hungerd kept Ase’s cup full while she made preparations. When there were no more preparations to be made, Ase carried Ardith’s body across the beach herself and laid it on the pyre.She stood there for a long time, the sea breezes tugging at her clothing like a child in need of attention, while she looked at what remained of the woman she loved.The beauty, wild as the sea.

She gestured to Hilde for the torch.Its flame warmed her face in the cool of the morning as she took it, held it for a long, still moment, and then touched it to the wood. In moments, flames were engulfing everything: the wood, the body, the grave goods.

Ase Ironhand had spoken before the burning pyres of many a dead Dane, including that of her own father.She spoke well.Knowing many of the poems and sagas, and gifted with improvising on her own, she was often asked to do it, even before she had taken her husband’s seat.Today, this farewell was not for anyone but herself. All she said was, “She was mine, but feared belonging to me. I was hers, but did not tell her so that she understood. But death is no barrier to love. Not for a heart as brave as hers, nor one as stubborn as mine.”

And then she spoke no more, and she sat down in the sand, and finally, at long last, she wept.

Smoke stung her eyes. She would not be moved until the flames had subsided.Hilde kept quietly bringing her fresh drinks as she sat, with the heat stinging in the back of her throat, staying near to Ardith for as long as there was anything to stay near to. So she bore the discomfort, and she wept, and watched the sparks and ashes fly upwards in the winds, blurred by the slow, endless stream of tears.

Hours passed, and finally Hilde came to Ase where she sat in front of the smoldering pile, and gentle said to her, “Ase. A ship approaches.”

Ase stirred. “Hm?”

“A ship approaches. A small one. A _snekke_.”

Ase slowly turned and looked at her.She wiped her eyes, blinked, and focused on her face. “Do you recognize it?”

Hilde shook her head. “Not particularly. It is a Danish ship. It appears to have a very small crew. There are no roundshields on the sides of it, from what I can see.”

Ase nodded. “Can you tell their course?”

“They are coming here, it seems.”

Ase sighed and stood up.She spent a few moments collecting herself; wiping her tears, shaking off the sand from her clothing, and dulling the edge on her emotions. The mead was helping a bit.

She walked to the water’s edge and waited, watching the ship come closer. She saw aboard it a young girl, and two young men, not much older than Ardith had been.They were rowing briskly, seeming to be moving with a great deal of purpose. As they drew nearer, Ase recognized the young girl. It was Caja, Ardith’s sister.

She said nothing, standing on the shore, watching as the little boat came aground on the beach, and the girl disembarked and came striding toward her through the shallow water.The two youths scrambled after her, appearing to counsel caution, which Caja was not particularly heeding.

Ase watched curiously, saying nothing until Caja was standing before her, hands on her hips, blond hair billowing in the wind like a Saxon girl’s, the edge of her rough cloak dripping wet.

“Where is my sister?” Caja demanded.

Ase’s heart sank. She gestured to the pyre. “You have arrived late for her farewell, I’m afraid.”

Anger flared up in the girl’s eyes. “What have you done?”

Ase shook her head. “It isn’t what you think. I loved your sister. She loved me. Her death was … a terrible accident.”

Caja looked at her with disbelief. “You burned my home and killed my people, and took my sister and two of our friends. I heard what happened.”

Ase closed her eyes. “Yes, that’s all true. But, things changed in the course of our journey. I loved her. I protected her from harm. Twice, she saved my life. The others here will tell you all this.”

Caja looked unimpressed. “The words of your people mean nothing to me.”

“They’re your people too,” Ase said gently. “You are, after all, a Dane too.”

Caja frowned at her. “I’m neither Saxon nor Dane. My father saw to that. Ardith and Jokum were my only family and you took them from me.”

“How did you find us? And where did that ship come from?”

Caja gestured over her shoulder. “It’s my father’s ship. Jokum decided not to burn it after the raid was over, so that I would have something left of my father.It’s my good fortune that it still sails.”

Of course.

Caja went on. “We went on the word of one of the few villagers who remained alive, saying that you had gone back through the straits toward Frisia, so we have been tracking you since we left. You’re well known at Helder, and we were able to get some good information there about your likely route.” She glanced at the Havsorm. “But this ship looks smaller than the one that you came in.”

Ase nodded. “Yes. We encountered some Swedes at sea, fought them, and took their ship. Your sister fought beside me then.”

Caja’s eyes narrowed. “You know what needs to happen now.” Caja stared at her. “I want my sister back. If you can’t give me that, there is nothing I want from you apart from your death.” She drew a sword at her waist. Ase recognized the blade.

“That was your sister’s sword.”

“Yes. It’s name is Moonflame. You left it in the marsh when you took her. And now it’s mine. It’s the sword I’m going to use to kill you.”

Ase smiled sadly.Caja was half a head shorter than her, and Ase had already seen the extent of her training. There was no way that the girl would win. “I’m not fighting you, Caja. I can’t be responsible for the death of you and your entire family.”

But Caja was insistent. “You owe me this. Unless you have no honor at all.”

Ase held up her iron hand. “Will you give me a moment to speak with my people?”

Caja nodded.Ase felt the weight of her scowl as she walked up the beach a little ways, with Hilde and Harald behind her. She wished Bjorn were here. His counsel was always the best. She wondered what he would say to this.

“It’s not your fault that the girl is such a fool as to challenge you,” Harald said immediately.

“She’s within her rights,” Ase answered. “But I don’t want to kill her, not after what happened.”

“You could simply give her a little spanking,” Hilde suggested. “Give her a beating, a little gold if you’re feeling badly about it, and send her on her way.”

“It won’t satisfy her,” Ase said. She knew. She could see the girl’s instransigence. She would only keep following Ase, demanding a fight.

Ase stared at the little boat. “If she wins, she takes all my things,” she decided.

Both of them stared at her. “You can’t be serious,” Harald exclaimed.

“I’m just being prepared.”Ase thought for a moment more. “Hilde, the spell that you did… it binds Ardith’s soul to mine forever, isn’t that right?”

Hilde nodded. “If it works as it should.”

Ase nodded again.“Alright. I’m going to accept her challenge.”

Harald and Hilde followed her back to where Caja stood.Ase could see them glancing worriedly at each other. Her heart had made its decision, however. _All things have order,_ she thought, _and we cannot take away what the gods have given us._ It could not be coincidence that Caja still had her father’s ship, or that she had managed to find them now, of all times.

“Caja, I will accept your challenge,” she called to the girl.

They faced one another in front of the smoldering remains of the pyre. Caja knelt down in front of it for a moment, muttered what might have been an invocation or might have just been a parting word to her sister, and then they stood at odds.

She made a run at Ase, blade raised, with all the speed she could muster on the sand. Ase raised her sword and blocked. The sound of steel rang on the beach and out onto the water.

Caja swung several times more. Ase blocked each one and stepped back. She wanted the girl to feel she was doing well. She took no return strokes.

She could hear the crew murmuring, _What’s she doing?She must be toying with the child. Why isn’t she making any blows?_ But Ase didn’t care. She was doing the right thing and she knew it. She wouldn’t make any return strikes until she had a sense of the girl’s speed and whether she would be able to block.

She made a careful lunge to the left and let the girl deflect it, and then again.Caja was strong for her size, but Moonflame was really too large a sword for her. She wasn’t quick with it. Ase wished that she could train the girl. She had a brave, fierce heart like her sister. She would be an excellent fighter with the right teacher.

“I loved your sister,” she said again, as if it would make a difference.

“I don’t care!” Caja shot back. She lunged forward and Ase stepped back, deflecting her sword to the side. “If you hadn’t come, she’d still be alive!”

“You’re a Dane!” Ase exclaimed, stepping in and lunging at Caja’s right side, slowly enough that she expected the girl to brush it away.She did.“You belong with Danes!”

“I belong with my family!” Caja ran at her, swinging wide and sloppy, just trying to get any kind of contact at all. A few minutes of ringing steel followed, and shuffling of feet in the sand.

 _And I belong with my beloved,_ Ase thought.

Caja paused, seeming to tire for a moment. Then she approached again.

Ase gave the girl a pained look. “I could make you my family,” she suggested. “Ardith spoke of you often. Under the circumstances, I feel you are my responsibility, just as you became Jokum’s when he struck your father down.”

Caja shook a little but swung again.“I am not a sack of grain to be passed around!”

“You misunderstand,” Ase went on recklessly, blocking her blow and pushing her back. “I would make you my heir, if you would have it.”

A little gasp went through the crew. Ase ignored it.

Caja froze for a moment, considering her. “You have nothing that I want.” She raised her sister’s sword and ran forward.

Ase watched Moonflame’s point approaching her chest. She released herself from the instinct to brush it aside. She felt nothing as it entered her chest, snapping the bone, and tearing her heart in two. She clutched at the blade with both her hands, looking down at it. She had dreamt this moment many times, dying in just this way. She looked up at Caja, whose face was a white mask of shock. She had not really expected to win.

“You let me pierce you,” the girl accused her.

Ase spat blood. She couldn’t speak. She smiled. “My heir,” she finally croaked.

Someone rushed over to catch her as she fell very slowly. 

She spilled back on the sand, looking at the girl. This was the right choice. This would complete Hilde’s spell. 

“Make sure Ubonhørlig is in her hands,” someone said.

She gazed at the pale sky, waiting for it to be over. This was the honorable choice. There was no question. And it was what Hilde’s magic demanded.

_My love, be still. I am on my way._


	63. Love's True Form

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion of Myoge and Shōshin's story, and the ending of the whole damn thing. I hope you've enjoyed it.

Furuhime would go down in history as Noboru’s most embarrassing victory.

Technically, after all, his army would have probably bested the monastics after a time.Still, Noboru had lost his life, and a quarter of his forces, to a handful of warrior monks. When combined with his shameful conduct leading up to the battle, the narrative began to circulate that he was no good, that he had never been any good, that it was really not his wife’s fault for having betrayed him in the end.

Upon their _daimyo’s_ death, his army fractured. Some, reasoning that as their master was dead, they were free from their oaths, simply sheathed their swords and walked off the field, heading for the road.Some simply stood in shock for a long time, uncertain what to do now.Only a small handful continued to fight, but since the field was in chaos and many men had been lost, Daisuke took it upon himself to clear the field and order the men back to their homes. 

The monks slept in the house that night, scattered several to a room on straw mats. Myoge slept beside Shōshin that night, hands clasped together in the darkness.

In the morning, there would be funerals, and then after that, bodies burning, sending smoke up into the noonday sun.

 

******

 

The monks made their way to Osaka, to have a word with the Toyotomi about the treachery of the now-departed daimyo.They explained their story to a junior lieutenant of the palace guard, who did not dismiss them, but left them waiting for half a day in the courtyard. Then he escorted them to a waiting room in the interior and another member of Hideyoshi’s court, this one seeming to claim higher status, came and questioned them again. 

“I would not like to be standing here at all,” the roshi grumbled as they waited on into the evening.

“I know your distaste for politics,” Shōshin said, “but this is a matter of seeing that the common people who lived under my husband’s tyranny are properly taken care of.”

The roshi frowned, but said nothing more.

Finally, on the following morning, they brought to see Hideyoshi, the lord of Osaka, and tell their story directly to him.

“So, the messengers have been telling the truth,” he mused. “Yehadaka Castle is in ashes, and Yorihime Noboru is dead. And you all must be the monks and nuns that gave his forces such difficulty until he showed his face.” 

Hideyoshi was not a young man. He had shrewd eyes and the shiny blackened teeth of an aristocrat, and he held his seat of power with comfort and authority. Noboru had been an idiot to think that he ever had a chance at outmaneuvering him.

“And you…”His eyes settled on Shōshin. “…you are his wife, the great general Inouye Aguri.”They had met on a few occasions during her time serving him alongside Noboru, but she looked quite different now.

“I go by another name now, but yes, I was his wife and general.”

“Amaterasu’s Hand, they used to call you, didn’t they?”

She nodded.

“Why did you betray your husband? Was it your intention to become a warlord in your own right?”

She smiled. “As you can see, I have become something else entirely. No, as his wife, I am turning his province over to you, as well as the remains of his castle and the estate at Furuhime. I have no desire for these things. I betrayed my husband because he was wicked. I returned in order to attempt to turn him from those ways, but I failed.”

Hideyoshi chuckled. “Rarely have I seen such a successful failure.”

She smiled politely.

“Are you certain you have no interest in becoming a general for me? I could richly reward someone who could lead such a small force to do such tremendous damage.”

“I am only a nun now, my lord. I rarely fight anymore, and when I do, it’s for the people, not for a _daimyo_.”

“Ah, but I also fight for the people. My goal is a unified Japan.One land.Not unlike your Nichiren, I think.That, more than anything, is the true purpose of Japanese steel.”

She bowed deeply. “I thank you for your offer, but I am currently committed to the _zendo_ for a minimum of three more years.”

“Ah yes,” he agreed, nodding, “you have your vows.Well.Come see me when you’ve fulfilled them, if you find yourself interested.”

 

******

 

Three years passed quickly in Deepest Mountain. Shōshin needed time to consider that she had fully closed a chapter of her life whose ending had lain unwritten. She needed time to consider how best to polish her soul. And she needed to live together with Myoge, who had been the one to light her path from the first, and who had come to represent all that was love. 

She found peace in their closeness, and though it was true that she wondered at what would come after she had fulfilled her obligation, she was content with living and waking and practicing dharma with Myoge, whom she loved deeply. She hoped that a time might come when they could be lovers, but it was not a thought that tormented her.

At the end of her three years, the roshi called her to him.“You have been here for three years, now.”

She nodded.

“Do you feel that this life suits you?”

She nodded.But a part of her hesitated.

It did not escape his notice. “What is your reservation?”

“I feel that it’s not my dharma to stay here. I feel that I need to practice The Way in the world, among those who most need it.”

The roshi scratched his chin, looking at her in a knowing way that told her he had expected this. “So you wish to fight for Hideyoshi?”

“No, not fight. But counsel, if he will have it.”

“I see.”He chuckled. “Three years of dharma practice and now you want to go and counsel imperial regents.”

Her cheeks grew warm.

But he was not saying this without fondness. “Your dharma was never to be ordinary, Shōshin. If you wish to become a lay person again, then we will give you a new variation of your root vows, and you may go into the world.”

Smiling, she bowed a little and then asked, “And what of Myoge?”

“Myoge is on her way to becoming an elder,” the roshi mused, “but she is certainly not obligated to do so if that is not what she wishes.” His eyes inspected her thoroughly, but with humor. “So she will be free to leave with you if she wishes. You’ve wanted that for a long time, haven’t you?”

And now her cheeks flushed.

“No need for shame. I had women too, you know, before I became the man you see now.”

This should not have been a surprise. She’d known that the roshi had once been a samurai fighting for the Tokugawas, when he was a young man. “I am… curious,” she admitted.

“It’s as pleasant as you think it is.” His eyes had a mischievous twinkle.

She squirmed, desperately wanting to leave, but knowing she had to simply let him have his fun with her. 

“You have held to your vows this entire time?”

She nodded.

“Then you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

 

******

 

Myoge said lengthy goodbyes to many of the monks and nuns and especially to the roshi, who had become like a father to her in the last thirteen years. She clapped Senkō on the shoulder.“One day soon, you could be the next Myoge,” she joked.

“I’d rather be the first Senkō.”

She had grown up over the last three years. Myoge was even a little sorry to leave her. It was that teaching instinct in her. It couldn’t be helped.

As she and Shōshin made their way down the mountain in the early light, it occurred to Myoge that she had not even asked what their plan was. She hadn’t even cared. When Shōshin had said to her that she intended to go back into the world, and asked her to come along, she had no hesitation.There would be no life that did not have Shōshin at her side. 

“So, where do you mean to take us?” Myoge asked her as they walked in the warm early morning.

Shōshin smiled. “I mean to take us back to Hideyoshi. I want him to take me on as a counselor, and you as a sword instructor.”

“Me? An imperial sword instructor for the Toyotomi?” The thought of it was shocking, somehow.

“Why not? You’re better than the best of them.”She reached over and tentatively took Myoge’s hand as they walked, and her heart sang when she felt the younger woman’s fingers tangle in hers.

“I’m not as good as you.”

“Yes, but I’m better suited to the type of counsel the imperial regent needs. So you are the obvious choice for sword instructor. You were the one, after all, who reminded me what Japanese steel was truly meant for.”

 

 

******

 

They intended to first travel to Kyoto, which was near enough.Keiko now lived there with Madoka and their young son Katsuro, and they could take rest and adequately provision themselves.It would be a few days’ travel on foot, but it was summer, and warm, and they could sleep on their straw mats under the night sky wherever they could find a welcoming tree or gurgling stream.

The first time they made love was just that way; on their straw mats, beneath a sea of stars, lying among the tall, pale grasses near a river. It came without intent, merely the natural blossoming of a moment of closeness.It was a kiss that unfurled itself into the slow, quiet zen that both of their bodies understood, the moment of shared breath, the skin’s knowledge of skin and the fingers’ knowledge of shape and scar, bone and breast. Mouth to mouth, belly to belly, they came to know each other’s physical selves as intimately as they knew one another’s spirits, and in just the same manner, the dividing lines between them blurred and what was separate fell away. 

 

*******

 

Hideyoshi was pleased to see her return. He was, however, somewhat dubious at her proposal. “Osaka Castle has never had a woman sword instructor, so far as I’m aware.”

She nodded. “I’m sure that’s so.”

“Retaining someone of your reputation for such a post would be easy to justify. You were a well-known general. But an unknown Buddhist nun?”

“Does it mean nothing that she comes at my recommendation? Our valiant showing at Furuhime would not have happened without her.”

In the intervening three years, Myoge had only become better. So Shōshin proposed that Myoge face five of his best samurai at once, and if she did not beat them all soundly, the request would be withdrawn.

Myoge did not disappoint.

 

 

******

 

 

Warm light filtered through the shoji and roused Myoge from her sleep. She still found herself in disbelief that she was waking up in Shōshin’s arms, and had been every day for nearly a year. Both of them had begun to let their hair grow again, and Myoge took inordinate pleasure in running her fingers through Shōshin’s thick, dark hair, fiddling obsessively with the shock of white that delighted her in ways she could hardly explain.

She smelled the green smell of strong tea in the anteroom, and heard the occasional patter of Katsuro’s little feet running across the floors.Shōshin woke, kissed her, and caught her in an embrace that lasted for several minutes and made Myoge blissfully unaware of everything else. They sighed happily to one another.

“Madoka!” Keiko’s voice came sharply from the other side of the shoji.

There was some mumbling protest from him that she couldn’t quite hear.

“Yes, you were. Now stop it.”

“I just want to know what they _do_ ,” he was saying.

“Don’t be disgusting. Go have some breakfast.”

They chuckled to each other. They were aware of the rumors that they were lovers, and felt no particular need to confirm or deny them. Keiko was aware, of course, but unsurprisingly, had no objection whatsoever. How could she, when the two people of whom she was perhaps most fond were together and loved one another as deeply as any two people she had ever seen? Shōshin could never bear children, and Myoge… well, she had been a nun for most of her life, and now, at thirty-one, it was really a bit late for her to be thinking of trying to have children anyway.

Myoge had to admit that she rather enjoyed watching Keiko be so fully in charge of her household. She was an excellent wife and mother, and took great pains to teach both the men in her life to be thoughtful, brave and responsible. Four-year-old Katsuro was developing wonderfully. Madoka was… well, he was coming along.The home was immaculate, well-managed, the finances always in order, and she took great pride in her continued study of the combat arts. How many women were so lucky as to have Hideyoshi’s own sword instructor come give them a lesson once in a while?

Keiko’s fingers tapped on the shoji.“Auntie? Myoge? I know you’re awake.”

“Yes, we are,” Shōshin responded, yawning. They’d been in for a week, taking a rest from their duties and visiting.

“Come have breakfast. There’s green tea and oyakodon. You’ll want to eat up before you go back to Osaka.” 

 

 

*****

 

Hideyoshi was the right man at the right time for Japan. Under him, for a time at least, there would be no more civil war. He was fortunate enough to have a counselor who had seen the worst the war had to offer, and a sword instructor who taught his men the deeper spirit of swordcraft, and the true purpose of Japanese steel.

Shōshin and Myoge lived their lives together, in the world but not of it.

“We haven’t lost our connection to The Way,” Myoge mused one evening after their normal _zazen_.

“We cannot take away what the gods have given us,” Shōshin replied.

“Just so.”

“Do you think we’ll ever know what it was we saw in the water?”

Myoge smiled. “Does it matter?”

Shōshin scooted across the floor to where Myoge sat, and tugged at the sleeve of her kimono. “Take this off, please.”

Myoge raised an eyebrow. “Is that how you initiate lovemaking now?”

Shōshin chuckled. “No. I just want to write on you.”

Myoge kissed her, and then with Shōshin’s help, undid her obi, and slipped the layers of her kimono down her shoulders, letting it crumple around her hips where she sat. She sat patiently, waiting for Shōshin to mix the ink, and then to feel the cool touch of the brush as she wrote:

 

_What is love’s true form?_

_The ring of Japanese steel_

_The closing of wounds_

_The luminous emptiness_

_In which the starflower blooms._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to those of you who rode all the way along through this whole thing. If you enjoyed this work, please consider supporting my IRL novel at this link: getbook.at/loudpipes.


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